


you are a runner (and i am my father's son)

by harakiridaddy



Series: Runners. [1]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 145,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harakiridaddy/pseuds/harakiridaddy
Summary: at twelve years of age, nicole haught decides it's better to leave and search for something else, something better, than deal with what seems to be reserved for her.not a lot of people are willing to love a wild little thing like her, and she was never one to wish for it, not until she met waverly earp.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Series: Runners. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752817
Comments: 777
Kudos: 1931
Collections: A few of my favourite things, AUs





	1. Chapter 1

12.

“Who are you?”

“Sir?”

“Who _are_ you?”

“Ain’t much, sir”.

The burly man sighs, moustache quivering as he looks down at the scrawny child standing in his front porch with an old backpack slung over her shoulder, knees scraped and left eye swollen.

“Are you Randy Nedley, sir?” the child asks him, feet scuffing about on the old welcome rug.

He narrows his eyes.

“Yes,” he starts, and then deflates. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m afraid I’m your niece”.

His moustache quivers even more, eyes widening in surprise. He stands still for what feels like an eternity before he gestures for the dangerously skinny kid to come in.

“Your mother never-“ he starts, cutting himself short. It’s been fifteen years since he last spoke to her. Of course he wouldn’t know.

The child’s red unruly hair is the same as the man’s who’d held onto her shoulder the last night they saw each other, though her eyes speak of gentleness Nedley does not think the redheaded man was capable of fitting inside himself.

“You have her eyes,” Nedley says after a second, knees trembling until he manages to sit down in his old reading chair.

The child with the red hair and the kind eyes stares back at him, emotionless. Her hands fiddle with her backpack’s zipper.

Her silence is oppressive, and her seriousness makes his spine tingle with discomfort.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

“It ain’t… I can’t live with them,” the child says with the first sign of emotion he’s seen. “Momma said I had an uncle, once”.

As the sheriff, it would be a lie to say this is the first time he’s seen a kid with a black eye and a hidden desperation to be anywhere but where they are.

As the sheriff, he knows it is not his place to take them in.

As the uncle of a child he’s never seen before, he shows her his guest bedroom and tells her he’ll warm up some waffles.

***

He stares, only mildly surprised, as the child in front of him eats ten waffles with inhuman amounts of nutella in about fifteen minutes, not stopping to talk, look up, or breathe.

He tries to hide his own fondness.

“Want anythin’ else?” he asks her when she finally stops to breathe.

“Coffee?” she asks with a smile, and he has to contain his laughter at a twelve year old kid asking for black coffee at three in the afternoon.

***

“Nasty black eye,” he comments as he reaches for clean towels in the upper cabinet on the bathroom.

The child hums, slowly swinging her feet as she sits on the closed toilet lid, eyes following his every move.

“Ya dad did that?” he presses further, unsure.

“Yes, sir,” she answers with something between shame and pride.

Nedley’s heart aches ever so slightly.

He grumbles under his breath, afraid too much empathy will push the child away. She doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who likes being felt sorry for.

He hands her the fresh towel, explaining how the hot water works before moving to leave her alone.

“Sir?” comes her voice, quiet and shy for the first time.

“Yes?” he asks, turning his head to look her in the eye, hand resting on the door handle.

“Will I have to go back?” she asks, steeling herself with the innocent kind of bravery only a child can muster.

Nedley sighs deeply, eyes shut.

He shakes his head.

“I ain’t the devil, kid,” he tells her, and pretends he does not hear the alleviated sigh which echoes on the bathroom tiles.

***

Nicole Haught, as young as she is, likes having a schedule.

It was one of the many things she doesn’t remember ever having, try as she might, so as soon as she arrives at the funny sheriff’s house, she asks for a piece of paper, and she writes down with her embarrassingly childish calligraphy her schedule for each and every day.

It goes as follows:

6 a.m. – Wake up, make my bed;

6:30 – Shower;

7 a.m. – Eat breakfast (if he makes me some);

8 a.m. – Organize my things;

12:30 p.m. – Eat lunch (if he makes me some);

13 p.m. – Maybe watch TV (check with Randy Nedley);

6 p.m. – Eat dinner (if he makes me some);

She tries to think of anything else, but comes up empty, so she asks the police officer with a belly she doesn’t think should be that big for his job if there’s anything she can do around the house.

“What ya mean?” he asks her, leaning over her shoulder as he tries to read her schedule.

It’d taken her one hour to complete, and the sun had already set. He had to insist for her to finally turn on the light of the room he’d given her. She’d said she liked the dark.

“I ain’t got much on my schedule,” she says gravely, as if the thought of sitting still was a blasphemy and a curse.

She doesn’t really understand why he looks so sad as he reads her words. Maybe her handwriting is worse than what she thought.

“What about school?” he asks her, swallowing around his own words.

She lets out a low whistle.

“Ain’t gone to school in a while, sir,” she tells him, wondering if her handwriting wasn’t enough for him to know that.

He looks at her as if she’s just said the most absurd thing in the world.

“They didn’t take you to school?” he asks, as she is clever enough to know who _they_ are.

“Used to. Didn’t in a while,” she repeats clearly, wondering what was so hard to understand.

The funny sheriff with the inappropriate belly and the gentle smell of aftershave crouches down beside her, holding her schedule as if it was the bible.

“Nicole,” he says for the very first time, and the name sounds nice in his voice, caring, different from the way her father shouts it and her mother loathes it. “You’re going to have to tell me everything, alright?”

So she does.

***

She tells him how she stopped going to school because she never had the time to do her homework and no one wanted to help her figure out how fractions worked.

She tells him she thinks her mom ain’t doing too good but she didn’t want to come with her.

She tells him it took her three days to get to Purgatory, a city she’d never heard of, and that she’d found his address by chance when her mother forgot an old phonebook over the coffee table of their small apartment.

She tells him she stole some of her father’s savings and left a note saying she was sorry but he ain’t too good a dad and her mom ain’t too good a anything.

He asks her if she thinks they’ll come after her, and she laughs before saying they’re probably glad she left. Maybe they’d want the 73 dollars she took with her back, though.

Nicole Haught asks Randy Nedley if she can stay here a while, maybe work for him or cut the grass outside or wash his car, she ain’t gonna be a bother, and when he’s tired of her he can tell her and she’ll leave, she promises him.

Randy Nedley tells Nicole Haught to stop being silly, she doesn’t have to do nothin’, she can stay as long as she can handle his nightly reruns of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Nicole tells him she doesn’t know who that is but she likes the TV a lot so she’s sure she won’t mind.

***

That first night, no one manages to fall asleep in Nedley’s house.

Nicole has a feeling in the back of her neck, like her father’s heavy breathing after he lit up the old, rusty spoon and shot himself with something she didn’t understand. She feels heaviness inside her, competing with the lightness of not sleeping on the floor or on an old couch for the first time since she can remember being a person. She’s scared, she admits to herself with frustration. Her hands shake, and her breathing comes with labored attention.

She wonders if this Nedley man isn’t going to be just like them, though something behind her chest and locked away by her ribs tells her someone who smells that good and whose eyes are that soft could never be like them.

Nedley cries, sobbing with a heaviness he’s entirely unaccustomed with. He’d tried very hard to forget about his sister, even harder to forget the man she’d left with, and it was embarrassing just how well it had worked. He feels disgusted at himself, the knowledge that his selfishness had almost ruined an innocent child weighting like an anchor on his chest.

Forgetting is all too easy when remembering tastes like cold, unsweetened coffee.

***

It’s slow, her progress.

Nedley tells her she can do whatever she wants whenever she wants, that she doesn’t need his permission to eat or watch TV or go out to the front yard, but she’s not used to that. Every time she leaves her room without a clear invitation she feels the familiar dread in the pit of her stomach, the memory of stinging slaps and cutting words so fresh and sour she can feel the taste of copper in the back of her tongue.

The way she behaves reminds Nedley of the small kitten he’d insisted his mother let him keep when he was fifteen, how it ran away from him for days on end, hiding behind furniture and under the couch, only coming out for food when there was no one around.

Be patient, his mother had said to him. He will come out when he’s ready.

So Nedley sat down on the floor with his comic books, reading aloud and pretending he didn’t see the kitten slowly approaching, each day a little closer to his feet. And one day, the cat crawled on his lap, licking his wrist before falling asleep.

Just like that.

***

The first week, she only leaves her room to run to the bathroom, or when Nedley tells her to come down to eat. He isn’t home sometimes, not around lunch, so she sits on her bed and counts how many specks of dust she can find on the ceiling until he comes back home, stomach grumbling in discomfort through the entire afternoon.

Nedley tells her she ain’t gaining much weight, so he starts leaving her cookies and chips and bags of gummy bears in her room before he leaves each morning.

The first time she sees three bags of gummy bears and two bags of potato chips sitting on the old desk of her new room after she comes back from their shared breakfast, she checks to see if he’s already left before crying her tiny little eyes out.

He doesn’t say anything while they eat dinner, and she ain’t ever had much to thank for before so she doesn’t say nothing either.

By their second week together, he notices she always eats the gummy bears and chips but never the cookies, so he practically drags her out of the house and begs her to _please_ just pick some snacks for herself so he will know what she likes and what she doesn’t like.

It takes a while, but she sets to choosing fruit snacks and gummy bears and jell-o and asks for one bag of each kind of chips, and it’s the first time Randy Nedley sees her as the child she really is. He laughs when he asks her if she likes ice cream and her eyes go so wide he’s scared for their sockets, pretending he’s asking for her help to choose some of the flavors and watching with barely contained joy as she sets on telling him all the flavors she wanted to try but never did.

She pushes the shopping cart with giddiness, and helps him bag and organize their groceries without him having to ask, and he is a little blue that it took her this long to come find him.

***

“What do ya do all day, kid?” he asks her as they share a pint of cookie dough ice cream one evening as drag queens yell at each other onscreen, to Nicole’s endless amusement.

“Count,” she tells him simply, bringing a spoonful to her mouth.

He frowns.

“Count?” he repeats.

“Yeah,” she confirms, nodding her head as she returns her attention to the TV. “Tiles, specks, furniture,” she adds after she notices he still doesn’t get it.

He sighs, deep and dejected.

“What do you like to do?” he tries again.

“Watch TV,” she shrugs. She’s probably watched more TV this past few weeks than she has her entire life.

“Aside from that,” he rolls his eyes.

“I dunno,” she shrugs, “never thought about that”.

Nedley hums, the now familiar burn of anger bitter in his tongue.

***

It turns out it is absurdly hard to figure out one’s own interests.

Particularly when you’ve never had the privilege to figure them out before.

So Nedley buys her coloring pencils and books and little car figurines.

She hates coloring, her hands feel too big and the spaces too small. She tries drawing, too, but her rendition of Nedley makes him laugh though he tries his hardest to hide it.

(he does put it in the fridge afterwards, so she allows herself to be proud, if nothing else, of finding someone who does not try to hide her from themselves).

She hates reading, which she already knew, but she tries to read all of the books anyways, because Nedley says it’s important to read and it makes her feel a little less stupid, even when it takes her five minutes to get through two paragraphs.

She likes assembling car figurines, and she tells Nedley she likes doing things with her hands, which makes him smile a rare smile. He buys her more of those, taking her to a weird little shop and telling her to pick whatever she wants. She chooses a small gardening kit and a variety of vegetable seeds.

She’s a little embarrassed. Her father used to tell her it was silly to garden, useless, but she tells Nedley she’s doing it because his belly is getting real round, to which he laughs, so she thinks he won’t mind too much.

She no longer needs his approval to leave her own room, and she spends the summer afternoons tending to the little stretch of land Nedley gave her, measuring and watering and fertilizing with scientific precision.

***

It’s late one evening when Nedley arrives home. It’s eerily quiet, and a strange heaviness settles in his stomach as he wonders if his sister decided to come get her daughter. He hears heavy footsteps running down the stairs, then, and sighs in relief.

“Nedley, sir!” yells Nicole, and he rolls his eyes at the formality of it all, “sir!” she yells again, and he looks up as she walks inside the kitchen, face red and chest heaving.

“Yes?” he asks her, moustache twitching as he attempts to hide his amusement at her childishness.

“You won’t believe it!” she yells again, though there’s only a kitchen island standing between them.

“What is it, kid?” he asks, sipping on the beer he’s just opened.

“My cabbages started sprouting today!” she yells once again, gesturing wildly around her as if the sprouting of cabbages could only compare to the Big Bang her old science teacher had told her about once.

Nedley feels as if someone lit a campfire just beside him. Her excitement is like marshmallows.

“That’s so cool, Nicole!” he tells her honestly, smiling, “I’m real proud of ya”.

She stares back at him with no recognition, as if he’s not really there. Like he’s just a ghost.

He worries for a moment, but then her thin little arms wrap around his waist and she’s hugging him with the strength of daily bags of gummy bears.

Just like that.

***

It is a particularly warm day, and sweat runs down her hairline in a steady and, frankly, annoying trickle. The sun shines down oppressively over her, casting a strong shadow on the small little signs of life she’s planted. She watches as droplets of salt water fall over ever so often, worried the salt might hurt her little friends.

She hears Nedley’s truck pull up on the driveway but makes no effort to move, instead continuing to add precise quantities of fertilizer over the little cucumber sprouts, conversing with them as she goes.

“Howdy,” comes the strong boom of Nedley’s voice, and she turns around, hand over her eyes as to avoid permanent blindness.

“Howdy, sir,” she answers, still crouched over wet earth.

“How are the tomatoes coming along?” he asks her, big hands resting on his utility belt as he slowly walks up to where she is, Stetson casting a shadow over his eyes.

Nicole envies his hat.

“Nicely, sir,” she tells him, unbending her knees until she’s straightened up. Her cut off shorts are covered in dirt, and she worsens the situation by wiping her hands on them.

Nedley stares at her for a second, the way he stares at her when he asks her something about her parents or her interests or her math level.

She gulps, suddenly nervous.

“Somethin’ wrong?” she asks, going for casual but sounding like a scared animal.

Though she tries to ignore it, it takes a little more than a few weeks to grow from twelve years of being told you are not desired.

“Nothin’ wrong,” he assures her with a nod, “but school’s startin’ in a couple weeks”.

“Ah,” she says simply, dumbly, still staring.

“I’m the sheriff around here, so nobody comes around asking any questions, but they’ll be if I don’t get your scrawny ass in school”.

“Ah,” she says again, dread settling in her stomach like an array of rocks, pulling her down down down until her feet are deep roots and her face is smothered in dirt and wet earth and tiny little bugs. “I ain’t too good at it,” she informs him.

“You’re a smart kid,” he tells her gravely, thumbs resting on his belt loops, “we can talk to the principal. Put ya in classes on your level”.

“I ain’t going to school with a bunch o’ babies!” she tells him, crossing her arms against her chest defensively.

“Didn’t say you were, kid,” he tells her with endless patience, “just… if needed be. We’ll see how it goes”.

He leaves, then, and Nicole knows there’s little arguing she can do.

She knows he’s right, as he often is, but she remembers teachers yelling at her for never getting anything done and kids laughing at her for wearing old shoes and never bringing any lunch, so she doesn’t feel any excitement with the prospect of reliving a hell only better than her private hell of a family.

***

It’s a Saturday when Nicole Haught goes to the mall for the very first time in her life.

She doesn’t like crowds, so she pulls her proud head out of her ass and holds Nedley’s hand tightly, a little too tightly, squirming against his solid presence as they pass nicely dressed ladies with whiny children and dogs who are way more nicely treated than Nicole ever was, men in suits which are most definitely not compatible with the heat outside, and old ladies who stare at her old clothes with too much judgment in their eyes.

“Doin’ okay?” Nedley grumbles under his breath, looking down at the too tall kid holding his hand like a lifeline.

Nicole lets out something like a whine, and he holds it tighter.

***

“I ain’t needin’ no new clothes, sir,” Nicole tells him for the third time, to which he once again shakes his head with vehement sweetness.

“Well, I wanna buy ya new clothes, chicken,” he tells her, the nickname slipping with familiarity from his lips. He’d called her that after they’d had a heated argument veiled with laughter over how thin her legs were. She pretended to hate it, but it brought warmth to her heart and a stupid smile to her face.

He lets her loose in an enormous department store, claiming he has no clue what to buy for a twelve year old kid.

“I’m a teen,” she tells him, to which he rolls his eyes with fondness.

“Sure, sure,” he says, gesturing for her to go on, “off you go, twelve year old teen”.

Nicole wanders around aimlessly through aisles of girly clothes, complete with glitter and pink and ribbons, and she hates every single option she has.

“Sir?” she starts, heart beating just a little faster than usual.

She’s a wild thing, she knows.

“Hm?” Nedley hums, uninterested as he stares with horror at a baby pink dress which glimmers painfully under the fluorescent lights.

“I ain’t too fond of pink,” she tells him, ready to scurry off and run away and never be found again.

He stares at her for a second, nodding in agreement. He ain’t, neither.

“Wanna head over to the boy’s side?” he asks her, only half paying attention to their conversation. His feet hurt in his new, heavy boots and his back is not what it used to be.

Nicole stares at him, mouth opening and closing as if she’s trying to think of something to say.

“You don’t mind?” she asks him finally, eyes cast downwards.

He looks at her before rolling his eyes.

“Kid, as long as you change out of this god-awful clothes ya have, I ain’t give a shit whatcha wearing”.

Nicole laughs at the bad word which left his mouth, giggling still as she chooses mountains of plaid shirts and dark jeans and enormous T-shirts Nedley is sure could fit three Nicoles inside.

***

They eat cheeseburgers, Nicole’s favorite food in the entire planet as she very gleefuly tells him, and he chuckles at the absurd amount of food she can eat.

He wonders if it is okay to call them a family yet.

***

As it so often happens with the ones we love, Nicole arrives in Nedley’s home with no expectations and no clue of what she’s doing, and Nedley takes her in with no expectations and no clue of what he’s doing and maybe just a little pity.

As it so often happens with the ones we love, it takes very little time for Nicole to be completely unable to imagine herself without the heavy presence of a pot-bellied old man who buys her too many gummy bears, and Nedley to be completely unable to imagine himself not smiling every time he sees a bag of gummy bears.

***

“What if they show up?” Nicole asks one evening as they eat the dinner she’d made for them.

(she was used to cooking for herself and for others, and they quickly realized she was way better at it then Nedley).

(she tells him she’s glad she has something else to add to the schedule she’s put up on the wall of her bedroom with scotch tape, and he smiles a sad smile she does not understand).

Nedley, of course, knows who they are.

If she’d asked the same question a few weeks earlier, he’d maybe be less affectionate and more cowardly in his answer.

But love is affection and bravery, so he tells her he’d rather shoot someone dead than let them take her away from him.

Nicole smiles.

***

More often than not, love is the threat of murder disguised by the sweetness in our eyes and the smile on our lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *banging pots and pans* welcome to hell!!! welcome to hell!!!


	2. Chapter 2

12.

“You ain’t wearin’ that,” Nedley remarks after taking one look at Nicole.

She looks down at the dirt stained cut-offs and old converse shoes with a frown.

“What’s wrong with ‘em?” she asks him, arms crossed and head tilted, defiant.

Nedley had been getting a lot of that defiance lately, and frustrating as it was, he had a hard time hiding how pleased it made him. It was nice to see she felt this level of comfort around him.

“Didn’t I buy ya pants?” he asks her with a roll of his eyes, sipping on his coffee.

“I ain’t meetin’ the president,” she tells him with a roll of her own.

He chokes on the coffee, stifling his laughter.

“Kid,” he says, trying to maintain his gruffness, “just put on some pants”.

She grumbles something under her breath before leaving the kitchen.

***

Nicole watches intently as the principal’s secretary types away on the computer, glancing up ever so often to smile at the skinny child with the dangling legs sitting in front of her.

“I wasn’t aware Nedley had a child,” she comments, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“I ain’t _a_ child,” Nicole tells her, serious, “I’m his niece”.

“Oh,” the secretary smiles at her, and Nicole can tell it’s genuine, “you’re staying with him, then?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nicole nods, pulling on the sleeves of her brand new shirt, “my parents weren’t too good at bein’ parents”.

The woman goes quiet for a second, searching for something to say, before nodding once.

“The sheriff is a good man,” she tells her, “you won’t have to worry”.

Nicole nods vigorously.

She’s starting to accept that as a truth.

***

It takes him exactly twenty one minutes and forty seven seconds to come out of the principal’s office. Nicole wonders if he’s said anything bad about her, but both him and the serious looking woman by his side smile at her, beckoning her in.

“Nice to meet you, Nicole,” the woman with the tight bun tells her with a wolfish smile, “I’m principal Lucado”.

Nicole moves to shake her hand, and the woman stares in awe.

“Pleasure to meet ya, ma’am,” Nicole nods once before sitting back down at Nedley’s side.

“Nedley’s told me a little about you,” she says, suddenly serious, “is there anything else you think I should know?” she asks, hands interlaced neatly in front of her.

Nicole wonders how the hell she’s supposed to know if she doesn’t know what Nedley said, but bites her tongue. Nedley told her to be nice.

“No, ma’am,” she says, looking her in the eye.

Lucado nods once.

“Well then,” she starts, “he told me you haven’t been going to school, is that correct?”

“I went alright,” Nicole corrects her, “just stopped for a while, is all”.

The woman sighs, and Nicole remembers not everyone is as patient as Randy Nedley.

“Would you be okay with taking a few tests for us?” she asks, not unkindly, and Nicole feels dread settling in her joints.

Silence drags on, interrupted only by the slow ticking of the clock.

“I s’pose,” Nicole shrugs, ears reddening.

“Well then,” the woman claps, cheerful once more, “I’ll get them sorted out and will be back in a bit”.

“Wait,” Nicole looks up, eyes wide, “right now, ya mean?”

Lucado stares back at her, nodding in confusion.

“I ain’t even…” Nicole frowns, despair holding onto her throat with a deadly grip, “prepared,” she mumbles.

Nedley’s heavy hand rests on her shoulder, grounding her, and Lucado excuses herself.

Nicole deflates, sighing heavily, and Nedley wonders how a twelve year old can look so old.

“Kid,” he starts, fingers dragging on long red hair, “it’s okay”.

“She’s gonna know I’m real stupid,” Nicole shakes her head, retreating from his light touch like a wounded animal.

He sighs.

“Ya ain’t stupid, chicken,” he tells her gravely, “she wants to help. Ain’t no use puttin’ ya in class if ya have no clue what’s goin’ on”.

Nicole retreats further into herself, and he briefly wonders if their progress will be lost.

“Tell ya what,” he says, “you take the tests, we figure this out, and then we go for some ice cream, yeah? As many toppings as ya can handle”.

She looks over, briefly, and if he blinked he might have lost the glimmer in her eyes, but he tries not to miss anything, not with her.

She doesn’t answer, only grumbling to herself, but he takes it as a good thing.

***

Nicole is surprised when Lucado tells her she seems to be in level in Geography and Sciences. Nicole always did like those subjects, she tells her, and the little things she did not know, Lucado assures her, she will learn in a heartbeat.

Nedley beams, heavy hand moving to mess up red hair as he tells her there was no need to be so nervous.

Nicole is not surprised when Lucado tells her she will have to take History and English classes with younger kids, two levels down. She was never too good at reading and writing and memorizing dates, so she shrugs her shoulders in defeat and tells them it’s alright.

What can you do.

“Your math is good,” Lucado nods at her, “little trouble with fractions, though,” she says, gracious, and Nicole scratches the back of her neck. “I suppose we can keep you with kids your age, if you promise you’ll try very hard to keep up”.

“I do, ma’am,” she tells Lucado, smiling, and Lucado smiles a strange little smile back.

“She likes to count,” Nedley tells no one in particular.

“I like to count,” Nicole repeats.

***

“Did ya die, kid?” Nedley asks as he parks his truck by Purgatory’s only ice cream shop just outside the municipal park.

“A little, sir,” Nicole replies, rolling her eyes, and he chuckles.

This damn kid.

“Can ya teach me fractions?” she asks him as they walk up to the shop, absentmindedly holding onto his hand as she sees the number of people already inside.

He smiles, mustache twitching and crow’s feet showing.

“I s’pose,” he tells her, opening the door.

***

Nicole adds at least a spoonful of each topping and six different flavors to her ice cream, and Nedley starts to think he should be more careful, diabetes ain’t no joke.

***

On Nicole’s first day back in school, her heart beats so fast she worries she might pass out, and her palms sweat so much she wonders if she’ll be able to hold a pencil at all.

Nedley makes her bacon and pancakes for breakfast, but she can barely stomach it.

“It’s just school, kid,” he says gently, nudging her after noticing she’s only on her second pancake.

“Ain’t too good at it,” she reminds him again, and he sighs.

“You’ll be fine, chicken,” he reassures her, and she wants to believe him, but there’s the reminder of heavy breathing on the back of her neck and her little baby hairs tickle her as they move.

She downs her coffee and tells him she’s ready to go, new backpack he’d bought her the week before slung over her shoulder and old converse shoes scuffing about on the linoleum.

***

She’s survived a strange, violent father with peculiar needles and rusty spoons and venom on his tongue, and she’s survived a mother so empty, so soulless and loveless and blissed out she reminded Nicole of the man who’d pretend he was a statue, painted silver and motionless as he waited for people to throw him coins.

But she is a kid, after all, and as being a kid goes, school still seemed to be the biggest hurdle in her life, the trials and tribulations of making friends and learning things and finding somewhere to sit for lunch so nightmarish and harrowing she briefly considers just sitting on the sidewalk all day.

But she’s so very tired of disappointing others and so very tired of being who she is, so she takes a deep breath and holds onto her backpack like it’s her otherworldly salvation, counting her steps as she walks inside the building already filled with screaming children and conceited teenagers.

She’d made sure she would know where all her classes were, her schedule burned onto her memory like a prayer, and she tries her very best to look as small as her exceedingly long legs will allow her.

She was never one to have any friends, and she does not plan on starting now, deciding she will be as close to a fly as she can possibly be, harmless and forgotten and free.

***

Her first week goes by surprisingly quickly, and although the smaller children look at her like she’s Goliath in a sea of Davids, she says nothing and looks at no one and pays attention as best as she can, writing down what she thinks is important and shaking her head whenever her mind starts to wander to how her plants are doing.

She isn’t sure if Purgatory is just small enough for it, or if maybe the kids weren’t all raised in the god damned wild like the kids in her old town, but no one seems inclined to want to waste their time with a new kid with red hair and old shoes, all too busy with their lifelong friends and familiar teachers and knowable everything that her strangeness seems to be little more than a smudge in their line of sight.

On Friday, as she eats the sandwich and chips Nedley packed for her, she realizes she can get used to this strange town with unaccountable stories and folk tales and dangerous ghosts if it means someone who smells of aftershave will pack her lunch everyday and the principal’s secretary will smile at her whenever she passes by the front of her office.

***

But being twelve does not last forever, as all things do not.

***

13.

Nedley watches her with curiosity, sipping on a can of beer as he holds onto a newspaper she’s sure he isn’t reading.

She feels the sun beating on her back vigorously, sweat dripping steadily under her cotton shirt as she waters her cabbages and cucumbers and tomatoes. She smiles at them all, telling them they’re doing great and she’s real proud and they can’t wait to taste what they have to offer.

“Kid?” he asks her.

“Sir?” she yells back, not looking up from her small garden.

“You’re twelve, eh?” he asks.

“No, sir,” she tells him, still focused on the garden, “ain’t twelve no more”.

She hears something between a cough and a gasp, finally looking up to see if the old man is still breathing.

He stares back at her in disbelief.

“What?” he asks her.

“Ain’t twelve no more, sir,” she repeats, covering her eyes with her less dirty hand.

“Wha- Why didn’t ya tell me?” he asks her, mouth opened wide.

“Tell ya what?”

“That it was – Ya birthday! When was it?”

“Last week, sir,” she tells him, “twenty seventh”.

His face is strangely red, and she wonders if he’s doin’ alright.

“Your birthday went by and ya didn’t tell me?” he asks, still immersed in disbelief.

“Never celebrated it, sir,” she tells him, returning to her garden.

Nedley excuses himself so she won’t see the stray tears which escape his eyes.

***

He wonders what to give to a kid with virtually no interests beside RuPaul’s Drag Race (though he isn’t sure she’s interested in the show or in spending time with him) and gardening.

He was never too good with gift giving, so he settles with the one thing he knows she’ll like.

***

He knows the little thing which lives with him can be little more than a scared animal cornered in an empty room, and he knows it is no use forcing love or kindness or anything upon something which cannot always recognize it, so he just shoves his own Stetson on the top of her head one morning as she’s checking on her plants before leaving to school, throwing a decidedly unplanned comment about how the sun is bad for her skin. She stands, motionless for a long time, before fixing it on her head, pulling her long hair back and trying her very best to keep the too big hat fixed in place.

He says nothing else, and neither does she, but she gives him a quick, barely there hug before leaving his truck, backpack slung over her shoulder and hat still on her head, and he sighs with relief as he watches the tiny little thing he’s come to call his own steel herself before being the bravest person he’s ever met.

***

As she eats five slices of pizza that night, stopping between bites to tell him that she’s starting to figure out how fractions work and the geography teacher had given her good marks on the quiz they had last week and that a silly boy with a silly Mohawk had laughed at her hat but she’d told him to go to hell and he’d gone away, Nedley knows, with the certainty we know we’d been sleeping right as we wake up, that he loves the small thing in front of him more than he loves his job or this damn town or light beer or life itself.

***

Nicole was never one to like being made fun of, as no one really is, but when you’re used to being either ignored, slapped around or made fun of when at home, you aren’t too prone to letting dumb kids do the same when you’re in school.

Lesser evils and whatnot.

So when a silly boy with a silly Mohawk and a silly boy with a shit eating grin make fun of her clothes and tell her she dresses like a boy and ask her why she wears a police hat, she tells them just how dumb she thinks they are and how much better than them she dresses and just where she’ll shove the police hat if they don’t shut their mouths.

And so it goes.

***

By chance, she learns she’s quite good at basketball when, during gym, she’s forced by the coach to join one of the mixed teams because one of the girls had sprained her ankle.

(Nicole is pretty sure the girl’s ankle is fine, as she is pretty sure the coach knows as well, but kids are exhausting and insisting and all around little devils, so she cuts her some slack).

She’s good at bouncing the ball up and down, which the coach tells her is called dribbling, and she’s quite a fast runner, though it is harder to put the giant ball through the tiny hoop. There’s a kid in her class, with dark hair and eyes so light they’re almost grey, one she’d noticed before because she was reminded of herself.

The kid with dark hair and light eyes is good at throwing the ball into the hoop, so Nicole runs and dribbles and runs a little more, and then she passes the kid the ball and watches with something remarkably close to pride as the ball goes in the hoop again and again and again.

They win, and the coach tells her she should train with the basketball team.

“Yes, ma’am,” Nicole answers, because she isn’t sure if she has a choice or not.

Bobo del Rey, the kid with the silly Mohawk who so happens to be on the opposing team, grumbles and seethes as she talks to the coach, and she decides she’d join the team even if she had the choice not to if it meant it’d piss him off.

***

“Aren’t you twelve?” asks the boy with the silly smile and stupid eyes, leaning over his table and interrupting Nicole as she pulls out her English textbook out of her backpack.

“Thirteen,” she replies without looking at him.

He snickers.

“I’m eleven,” he tells her, bragging, though Nicole isn’t sure why. She’s older than him. Does he not know how numbers work?

“Good for ya,” she grumbles, searching for the page they’re studying today.

“Ain’t ya in Bobo’s class?” he asks her again.

She sighs.

“Dunno who that is,” she tells him, though she does know.

“The dude with the Mohawk,” the boy with the silly smile tells her, and she rolls her eyes at the tone of reverence he uses, “he’s my friend”.

“Ain’t that a pity,” she tells him.

It really is.

She can _feel_ the boy seething behind her, desperately searching for something to say.

The teacher walks in, and Nicole sighs, not in relief, but something not too far from it.

***

If she wasn’t preoccupied with more complicated matters, she’d laugh at how it took the boy she learned went by Champ and his dear friend Bobo a whole three days to come up with their revenge.

If she wasn’t preoccupied with more complicated matters, she’d laugh at how even after three days, their revenge at what she can only consider mildly offensive comments she’d made without thinking consists of knocking her hat off her head as they walk through the school’s corridors.

If she wasn’t overcome by unrecognizable wrath and mania and something painfully similar to twelve years of half-living, she’d laugh at how it would have been much simpler to just pick the damn hat up and move on with her life.

But life works in mysterious ways, and cryptic is the mind of someone who’s been suppressing their anger and their frustration for their entire life, so she tackles one Bobo del Rey with too familiar violence and punches him in the face twice before someone is pulling her off him and dragging her screaming and kicking to Lucado’s office.

***

Her knuckles are red and bloody and they hurt like a word Nedley will not let her use, but still, it hurts much less than the look of disappointment on her uncle’s face as he walks in Lucado’s office.

She looks down at her shoes.

“Nedley,” she says, betraying nothing, “glad you could come”.

“Of course,” he tells her, and his voice is hollow and empty and Nicole wishes she’d never been born.

“As we already explained, miss Haught had a…” she stops, thinking, “an outburst, if you will”.

Nedley grumbles in response, staring at his own fingers.

“I understand she’s still getting accustomed to everything, and I cannot say this sort of… behavior isn’t to be expected from…” she stops, unsure, “kids like her”.

 _What the hell does that mean?_ Nicole thinks but does not say.

She is, of course, too young to understand trauma and behaviorism and how heavy and powerful and violent are the imprints of our parents’ hands on our tender skin.

“She never did anythin’ like it before,” Nedley tells Lucado as in a way of explaining, and Nicole realizes his voice drips with guilt and sorrow.

She wishes her mother and her father had never been born, either.

But they were born, and so was she, so she receives one week of afterschool detention and is forced to apologize to Bobo as he sits on the infirmary with a bleeding nose and tear streaked cheeks, though none of it feels as terrible as the silence that crushes her in the car ride home.

***

She knows Nedley wants to ask her why, and she knows it makes him suffer how much he is not able to understand or help, but she isn’t able to explain, either, so she swallows his silence like cough syrup and she allows them to fall back into themselves if only a little bit.

He reads his newspapers and watches his TV shows and she tends to her garden with obsessive care, and it is only when the first cherry tomato shows itself to her, green and tiny and shy, that she forgets she’s made him suffer and she runs inside the house, yelling at him with desperation.

It is as she points to it, yelling at Nedley that it’s right _there_ , he can’t miss it, and he has to crouch down with a whine and cracking knees to find the tiny little green tomato, telling her it looks great and he’s real proud and he can’t wait to eat it that she learns that forgiveness is not always the result of hard work and harder suffering and there’s no need for self flagellation, not really, because he loves her, he really does, and she loves him too, so it doesn’t matter if she fucks up and he doesn’t know when her birthday is, because he still watches as she goes on and on about how she thinks next week the cucumber will start showing.

***

Detention is not as bad as she figures it is for the kids with normal parents who do not do meth.

She does what she’s used to doing, she sits and stares and counts random things and the teacher stares at her for a few minutes before returning to her book.

***

“Heard you knocked Bobo on his ass last week,” comes a voice right as Nicole is entering the classroom detention is supposed to take place, and she turns around in surprise.

She recognizes the voice. Would you look at that.

“Uh,” she starts, swallowing around nothing, “he was bein’ stupid”.

The girl with the dark hair and light eyes laughs as if Nicole’s just told her the funniest joke in the world, which is funny since Nicole ain’t ever told a joke in her life.

“Isn’t he always,” the girl with the dark hair tells her, arm slung around Nicole’s shoulder as they walk together into the classroom.

“You got detention?” asks Nicole, eyebrows furrowed as they step in the empty room.

“Sometimes,” the girl with the dark hair tells her, plopping down on a chair by the last row. Nicole stares before following her. “What’s your name, new kid?”

“Ain’t new no more,” Nicole tells her, frustrated with the impermanence of time and eternity of nicknames. “Nicole Haught, ma’am”.

She extends her hand for the girl to shake, but the girl starts cackling like a madwoman instead.

“ _Ma’am?”_ she laughs and laughs and laughs, “Nicole _Hot?”_ she laughs louder, and Nicole had never thought of herself as a funny person but she’s either on her way to becoming a clown or this girl is crazier than what she thought.

“It’s called manners,” Nicole tells her with a shake of her head, “and it’s Haught. H-A-U-G-H-T”.

The girl calms down, face going suddenly very serious.

“Wynonna Earp,” she says with affected gruffness, “pleasure to meet you, sir”.

They shake hands and Nicole frowns and Wynonna laughs.

“I ain’t a sir,” Nicole tells her.

“Ain’t no ma’am, either,” she mocks her accent, drawling out the words.

The teacher walks in with a book in her hand and they go quiet.

Ever so often, Wynonna Earp looks out of the corner of her eye and stifles her laughter. Nicole rolls her eyes though her lips twitch up.

“Miss Earp,” the teacher looks up from her book, “something funny?”

“No ma’am,” Wynonna answers, laughing louder as Nicole’s face goes beet red.

***

“You joining our team, new kid?” asks Wynonna, arm slung over Nicole’s shoulder as they walk out of the empty school.

Nicole isn’t exactly sure when she’s given the girl the impression that they were friends, but maybe detention bonds people for life.

“I guess,” Nicole shrugs awkwardly, maybe trying to escape Wynonna’s grasp if only a little bit.

“You’re good, you should,” Wynonna tells her, releasing her shoulders as they walk up to Nedley’s truck. “Tell Nedley I said hi,” she laughs to herself, walking away.

There’s no one to pick her up.

“Makin’ friends?” Nedley grumbles, starting up the truck.

“Wynonna says hi,” she replies simply.

“Earp, ain’t it?” he laughs to himself, and something tells Nicole he’s laughing at the same joke Wynonna laughed at. “Would you look at that”.

***

“I’m startin’ basketball next week,” she mumbles as they eat dinner on Friday. Nedley ordered cheeseburgers to commemorate her last day in detention, telling her he ain’t gettin’ her no more if she gets in trouble again.

“Uh,” he says around a bite, “gettin’ them legs to good use”.

She nods, shrugging.

It’s another thing to add to her schedule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I beg you: do not expect daily updates.  
> Inspiration is a skittish little damsel and I am not in shining armour.


	3. Chapter 3

13.

Wynonna Earp was not a friend by any stretch of the imagination.

Nicole didn’t have lunch with her, they did not talk, they rarely spent time together.

But everyday just before basketball practice, the girl would put her arm around Nicole’s shoulders and drag her to the court, as if she was the only guarantee Nicole would show up at all.

(Nicole would never miss practice, especially not after writing Basketball on her schedule with the bright orange pen Nedley had given her).

She’d chat idly about how much she hated the kids in school and how Miss Laurence was a pain in the ass, giving Nicole no time to reply that she actually did like Miss Laurence quite a bit, she was patient and focused and real smart. She’d complain about her father and her schoolwork and even their coach, and Nicole would listen because that’s what she was used to do.

And then they’d get to the court and change into their gym clothes and Nicole would run and dribble and Wynonna would toss the ball high up until it went down into the hoop and that’s pretty much all it took for Nicole to start liking the raven haired girl with the icy blue eyes.

***

Nicole was never one to brag, but the coach tells them both to stay after practice one day, when she’s still not used to running so much and being told what to do so loud.

She was never one to brag, but she really, really wants to after the coach tells them they make a great team and to keep up the good work. She messes up Nicole’s ponytail, telling her it isn’t easy to find kids this giving when playing sports and Nicole replies there ain’t any difference if the points are still bein’ made so why bother, and she chuckles and tells her she’s right.

***

She pokes around she wet soil of the tomatoes, admiring the sheer number of little green bulbs as the sun sets behind her new home and Nedley sips on his beer as he tells her to come inside, it’s getting cold.

“Coach says I’m real good at playin’ in a team,” she tells him quietly, almost too quiet for him to listen.

His heavy hand rests on her shoulder with a reassuring grip, holding onto her tightly, and he tells her that’s real nice with a gruff little wet voice, and she pretends she can’t see how red his eyes have gotten and how loud his sniffing is as he serves her a big bowl of spaghetti.

***

Two days later, she’s bouncing the ball up and down in court by herself. Nedley had an important meeting and told her he’d take a while longer to pick her up, so she decides to just hang around with the big orange balls and the weird little hoops and try her hand at getting a few points on her own.

She thinks she’s alone, flicking her wrist the way the coach told her to do, and it is as she watches the ball missing it’s mark by a great distance that she’s hit on the back of her skull.

She lets out a breath, startled and confused and in white hot pain, leaning over her own knees as she winces.

An orange balls bounces up and down and away from her head, all too telling.

Wynonna cackles behind her.

“Watch your back, Troy Bolton,” she yells, and Nicole has no clue who Troy Bolton is but she’s about two seconds away from telling Wynonna just what she thinks of the nickname. “Wanna learn how to make some baskets, uh?”

Nicole considers, holding the back of her head which still stings tremendously and wincing as she turns around to stare at her attacker.

“That ya way of sayin’ hey?” she asks, jaw clenched.

“To be fair,” Wynonna takes off, jogging after the ball she’s just thrown, “I did say hi, but you’re half deaf or something”.

“I ain’t half nothin’,” Nicole replies, rolling her eyes, “ain’t my fault ya speak to yourself”.

Wynonna ignores her, dribbling the ball around her as a way of replying. Nicole huffs.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asks, walking over to pick up her own ball.

“I’m offering lessons, new kid,” Wynonna tells her as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “take them or leave them”.

“I ain’t payin’ you nothin’,” Nicole tells her gravely.

Wynonna huffs, indignant.

“I’m not _asking_ for it, dumbass,” Wynonna shakes her head, “but if you’re a little less incompetent we can make a little more points”.

And so, for the sake of numbers and points and victories, they settle on a mutual agreement of staying after practice so Nicole can learn the right way to flick her wrist and jump up and aim just right, both pretending they’re not enjoying themselves or bonding or having any fun whatsoever.

Wynonna certainly does not laugh whenever Nicole misses and Nicole certainly does not yell out in victory whenever the ball falls into the hoop.

***

“Ya been stayin’ late a lot lately,” Nedley tells her distractedly as he chews on a piece of buttered toast.

Nicole sips on her coffee.

“Wynonna’s teachin’ me how to get the ball in the ring thingy,” she explains, mouth full with unchewed toast.

“Don’t talk with ya mouth full, damn it,” Nedley tells her, voice as strong as his eyes are soft, “and it’s called a _hoop”._

“Hoop, ring, goal,” Nicole shrugs, not interested in the details, “just learnin’ how to make points”.

“Makin’ friends, are we?” Nedley smirks, eyebrows raised. It’s not quite a question.

Nicole huffs, grumbling under her breath as she shovels scrambled eggs in her mouth.

“Ain’t makin’ no friends,” she replies, mouth full with unchewed eggs, “we’re _team mates,”_ she repeats the words her coach had taught her just last week.

Nedley laughs.

“Swallow before ya open ya damn mouth for Christ’s sake,” he complains, and then laughs again.

***

Nicole has nearly forgotten Bobo del Rey exists.

***

And then he reminds her.

***

Nicole is pretty confident she’s no longer the new kid.

She likes the anonymity it gifts her, not being much of anything, and she walks around and goes to classes and eats her lunch by the staircase and she’s alone, and she tells herself she likes it that way.

No one spares her a second glance except for Miss Laurence, who says hi with a small smile whenever she enters her class or Nicole asks her about meteors and countries and mountains, and Wynonna Earp, who yells out what could either be a nickname or an insult, she’s usually not sure, giving her a high five as she walks past her with her small group of strange looking friends.

She’s just her, with her old shoes and her big hat and the small key ring with the cartoon lettuce Lonnie the police officer had given her when she went by the station to bring Nedley his lunch and pass the time on a Saturday.

But then everyone is looking at her when she walks by Bobo del Rey and he yells out a very bad word which starts with the letter R and tells Nicole just how dumb he thinks she is.

She stops walking, hands shaking and temple gathering sweat as she hears the few kids around them laugh at her.

She thinks of Nedley and his disappointment and his twitching mustache and then she turns around, slowly. Deliberately.

“Ya need to get ya eyes checked,” she tells Bobo del Rey, slowly approaching him and his friends.

The hallway goes quiet, surprised and feverish with the imminence of a fight.

“I ain’t ya dad,” she tells him solemnly.

She hears laughter around her and thinks _would ya look at that, Nicole Haught crackin’ ‘em jokes._

And then she isn’t thinking of much as both Bobo del Rey and Champ Hardy jump on her, a random fist smashing against her ear and a random hand holding onto her shirt. She’s tackled backwards, hat flying off her head as another fist collides against her cheek, and she briefly wonders if that’s all they’ve got before Champ Hardy flies off her.

She has just the briefest glimpse of raven hair and a leather jacket, arms holding the boy with the stupid smile who’s lookin’ a lot like he’s pissed himself before Bobo tries to punch her again. She blocks it this time, wiggling under his weight until she throws him off. She uses his surprise to her advantage, throwing her legs over his waist and straddling him just as she hears a teacher she does not know yell at them to stop it right this second.

So she does, letting her arm fall limp and standing up straight. She sees Wynonna do the same beside her, not before slapping Champ’s cheek twice with faux affection.

She picks up her hat, putting it on her head as the teacher sends the four of them to Lucado’s office.

***

The office is a cacophony of two whiny boys yelling over each other about fairness and dumb girls and innocence and Wynonna telling Lucado just exactly how much she does not like the two of them, but Nicole sits in silence as her right ear rings and her cheekbone pounds, the beat resonating in her skull.

***

As it usually is, the world is not very fair, so Lucado decides it’s no one’s fault, calling everyone’s parents and telling them all to come pick them up.

She looks at Nicole with pity, and Nicole feels bile rising in her throat.

“I’m not giving anyone detention,” she tells them all in the name of pretend fairness, “but I do hope you won’t give me any more trouble”.

She stares pointedly at Nicole, and she knows she’s the outlier her. Caught in a landslide of bad behavior and worse anger management.

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” she replies, ignoring Bobo snickering beside her.

Nicole, Wynonna and Champ Hardy are sent to the infirmary, and Bobo is dragged away by a father who reminds Nicole of her own, and she allows herself to feel sorry for him.

***

“Champuel Hardison,” Wynonna says, pressing a wet cloth against her bleeding nose. Nicole isn’t sure how she got it.

They boy only looks at her, too annoyed to answer but too scared to be angry for it.

“What the hell does Waves see in you?” she asks him, flicking his hair away from his face as he stares in horror at her too close hands.

He holds an ice pack against the back of his head, and Nicole is almost sure he’s shaking.

“We’re friends,” he tells Wynonna as a way of explaining himself.

Nicole has no idea what they’re talking about, but is too tired to ask any questions.

Then, the door of the infirmary is slammed open with so much force Nicole is sure another father has come to get their child, but, instead, an almost ridiculously small girl stands by the entrance with fierce eyes and a locked jaw.

Nicole thinks she’s the prettiest thing she ever did see.

“You have got to be kidding me!” comes the sweetest, highest pitched voice Nicole has ever heard, and she decides she would like to be this girl’s friend. “Champ, are you okay?” she asks, running towards him as fast as her tiny little legs can carry her.

Never mind _that,_ Nicole sours.

“Yeah sure, Waverly, ignore your sister,” Wynonna rolls her eyes, plopping down beside Nicole on the old couch. Nicole holds onto her ice pack a little tighter.

Ah.

“You,” Waverly points at Wynonna, and if looks could kill Nicole is sure Wynonna would be dead and buried and exhumed just so she could be killed one more time. “What did Daddy say about getting into fights?” she asks, crossing her arms in defiance.

Nicole ain’t ever seen someone so tiny be this cross, especially not at Wynonna Earp.

Wynonna doesn’t seem to care.

“What did _Daddy_ say,” she mocks, voice higher than what Nicole thought was possible and arms crossed across her own chest, “it’s called being a _friend,_ Waverly”.

Would you look at that.

“We’re friends?” Nicole asks her, realizing as soon as she opens her mouth that she’s interrupting an argument between two girls she’s pretty sure she’d rather never get between again. Her ears burn.

Waverly looks at her for the very first time and Nicole thinks she could try being friends with someone who liked Champ if it meant she got to spend a little time with eyes that big and curious and beautiful.

She’s entirely too sure the feeling is not mutual as Waverly stares at her with unmistakable hardness, anger so visible she’s almost shaking.

“Sure we are, Sasquatch,” Wynonna says, casually ignoring the tiny ball of rage in front of them, “I almost died to save you”.

Nicole chuckles at the dramatization.

Waverly lets out a gasp.

“Who even _is_ that?” Waverly asks, little hands holding the ice pack against Champ Hardy’s unnaturally large head.

“We’re team mates,” Nicole answers.

“She’s the new kid,” Wynonna says at the same time.

Waverly huffs before returning her attention to the ever suffering boy beside her. He whines as she presses the ice pack against his head.

And maybe Nicole is meaner than what she thought she was or maybe she’s just not in the mood to handle strange, pretty little girls being overly protective of the people she dislikes, but for whatever reason, she opens her mouth.

“Ya done gonna need an iceberg,” she tells Waverly, face serious, “for that big ol’ head of his”.

Wynonna laughs so hard she drops the cloth on the ground, clutching her own stomach.

Waverly looks back with something between shock and fury, and Nicole is glad the nurse comes in to tell Champ his dad is here, almost thanking Champ as he walks away with Waverly behind him.

How nice it is to not be dead.

“I knew you were cool, newbie,” Wynonna tells her.

Nicole’s lips quirk up ever so slightly.

“Didn’t know ya had a sister,” she remarks, voice muffled by the ice pack on her cheek.

Wynonna sighs.

“Yup,” she pops the P. “She’s great, really. At home,” Wynonna sighs again, “not with the best crowd, though”.

Nicole hums as if she knows exactly what that means.

She doesn’t.

“She Champ’s age?” she asks instead of telling Wynonna she thinks the people we hang around are the best indicative of the people we are.

“Eleven, yeah,” Wynonna nods, “turns twelve in a little bit”.

Nicole doesn’t reply, and they sit in comfortable silence as they tend to their barely there wounds.

And then Waverly returns.

“Daddy’s here,” she tells Wynonna, pointedly ignoring Nicole.

Wynonna whoops with as much excitement as one would do in a funeral. Waverly purses her lips.

“Does it hurt?” she asks Wynonna as she stands up, and Nicole knows families enough to know that anger shouldn’t ever stand before worry.

“Only when I breathe,” Wynonna whines, hands pressing against her chest as she pretends she’s going to faint.

Waverly sighs, fondness evident, and they walk away.

She sits by herself, feeling her fingers go numb as she presses the ice pack against her face, and the burn of the ice is a nice distraction to the way her heart feels like it’s been thrown high up in the clouds and then buried deep in the upper mantle of the earth.

***

Nedley isn’t angry, Nicole can tell, but he’s quiet.

“I ain’t makin’ no excuses,” she tells him as they eat fried rice with chicken, “but he done call me a bad word out o’ nowhere”.

He hums, chewing on his food.

“I didn’t even do nothin’,” she keeps going, his silence like nails on a chalkboard to her ears, “just said that he done mistook me for his dad”.

Nedley chokes a little, coughing.

He looks at her for a long time, and she notices just how big the bags under his eyes are.

“It’s alright, chicken,” he assures her, “I know you”.

That he does.

***

When Nicole comes in her English classroom the next day, she notices two things.

The first is that her usual seat by the window has something written on it.

The second is that Wynonna’s sister is in the same class.

Champ’s age, she reminds herself.

Of course.

The small girl sits on the very first row, face to face with the teacher, and Nicole isn’t surprised she’s never noticed her before. She likes keeping her head down.

She approaches her seat slowly, and reads the word written with marker on it.

Bobo and Champ and terribly uncreative with their insults.

Nicole sighs, plopping down on her chair, and instantly regretting it. Waverly looks back, catching her eye, and stares at Nicole with curious recognition. She looks down then, and frowns.

Waverly Earp stands up.

_Oh boy._

“Champ,” she clicks her fingers, and the boy looks up from his seemingly enthralling conversation with a boy beside him, a dumb look of adoration on his eyes. “Don’t be mean,” she says simply, pointing at Nicole’s desk.

Champ shrugs a stupid little shrug, and it seems to be enough for Waverly. She sits back down, picking up her book, and Nicole counts to fifteen before opening her own backpack and pulling out her textbook.

She learns a little more about middle school hierarchy’s each day.

***

When Nicole was ten, she noticed that whenever she learned something new or realized something about her surroundings, those things seemed to appear more and more frequently around her. At the time, she thought it was some kind of psychic magic, but she’s thirteen and full of wisdom, so she knows that the difference lies on what her focus and attention are.

Had she not known Waverly Earp, who she was, who her family was, they could walk by each other a hundred times and she would not think twice.

But she knows Waverly Earp is a powerful little thing, with as much power as middle school allows you, and she knows she’s quite pretty, and she knows she’s Wynonna’s sister, so she notices her sitting with Bobo and Champ and those whiny girls who like to pretend Nicole has some sort of viral illness, and she notices she only talks to Wynonna when she isn’t with her friends, and she notices she’s always the first to put her hand up and answer questions in both History and English, and Nicole feels like Goliath and Waverly is her David and she hopes and prays that there will never be any stones by her feet.

***

“My sister says you’re in two of her classes,” Wynonna says, sitting down beside Nicole on the staircase as Nicole bites down on her tuna sandwich.

Would you look at that.

Nicole shrugs in response, trying to ignore the way her heart sets in a strange beat as Wynonna settles down on the same step she sits on.

“Didn’t know you’d failed anything,” Wynonna tells her. They share no classes, Wynonna being one year older than herself, but middle school is a place of little secrets.

“Didn’t fail,” Nicole answers, chewing on her sandwich, “just didn’t do ‘em”.

Wynonna doesn’t seem to be very interested in explanations, and Nicole is thankful.

“She’s… complicated,” Wynonna says, and Nicole isn’t sure why Wynonna seems so keen on getting her to like Waverly, but she doesn’t say anything. “She likes people. She likes it when they like her”.

Nicole shrugs again.

“That’s weird,” she comments, biting down again.

Wynonna opens a bag of doritos and a can of coca-cola, settling them between the two. She picks one out of the bag.

“People are weird,” Wynonna says.

Nicole hums in agreement.

“What’s with the hat?” she asks suddenly, mouth full off chips and nearly radioactive powder.

Nicole shrugs again.

“I like it,” she says, “Nedley gave it to me”.

“Randy Nedley,” Wynonna answers wistfully. “It’s weird, him having kids”.

“Ain’t his kid,” Nicole corrects, “just his niece”.

“You live with him?” Wynonna asks.

Nicole nods in response.

Wynonna slaps her shoulder twice.

“Sorry to break it to you,” she says, mournful, “but that means you’re his kid”.

Nicole supposes it does, in a way, so she shrugs and bites down on her sandwich.

***

There are days when Nicole wishes she didn’t have to go to school, there are days when she wishes Bobo and Champ didn’t go to the same school as she did, and there are days she wishes she could understand why Waverly Earp sometimes sat by the bleachers and watched in silence as she played one-on-ones with Wynonna, never saying a word and leaving before they were finished.

But each and every day she’s glad she’s left a home she ain’t had no business being in and found her way to one of the kindest men she’d ever met, and each and every day she’s glad she’s learning her fractions and her letters and her rock formations, and each and every day she’s glad Wynonna Earp sometimes eats lunch with her and says hi whenever they walk by each other.

And she supposes with the certainty only a thirteen year old kid can suppose much of anything, that having a loving parent and a maybe—kinda friend and a nice little vegetable garden is much more than she’d ever hoped for herself and as much as she could ever want, so she pays as much attention to class as she can and she tries to ignore Bobo’s antics and she tries to be friendly to Wynonna and she learns how to flick her wrist just right.

***

The first game they play as a team, Nedley finds someone to replace him at the Station just so he can watch, and he holds his breath and winces and cheers as the Purgatory Jaguars win against who Wynonna says are their arch nemesis but really are just some kids from the middle school three blocks down the road. Nicole manages a surprising amount of points, and she starts to get scared Nedley will drop dead with excitement in the middle of the game.

He survives, if only just barely, and she showers quickly, hands still trembling with adrenaline, and waits for Wynonna before they return to the bleachers.

“Daddy Long Legs!” she yells, snapping her wet towel against Nicole’s back before throwing her arm around her shoulders. “You made me so proud!”

Nicole isn’t sure why she was so nervous and why she is so excited over a silly game with silly kids but her heart feels warm and fuzzy so she doesn’t really give a damn.

Nedley is waiting for her with a small girl with long, wavy hair, and Nicole has to swallow around nothing.

“Your dad didn’t come?” she asks Wynonna, slowing down their walk.

Wynonna tsks, rolling her eyes.

“He’s too _busy,”_ she tells her.

And then she spots Waverly and takes off in a sprint. Nicole realizes Waverly is holding a small piece of cardboard with the number 27 painted with the colors of their team.

Wynonna’s number.

She smiles.

Wynonna hugs Waverly tightly, who laughs as she’s pulled up in the embrace, and Nicole sees her less as the queen of the world’s worst royalty and more like someone’s little sister.

Nedley hugs her tightly and she coughs, trying to breathe.

“Almost killed ya, uh?” she tells him as he lets her go, and he chuckles, heavy hand slapping against her back.

“If I knew ya were that good I’d gone and bought ya some better shoes,” he beams with warm pride, and she smiles up at him.

“Randy,” Wynonna says, hand raised to shake his own, “ya kid taught me that”.

They shake hands, and Nicole is half sure Nedley is going to roll his eyes or mumble something under his breath but he ignores the irony of the gesture and looks at Wynonna with warm eyes.

“Ya did good, Earp,” he tells her, and Nicole can tell Wynonna is trying her darnest not to smile at him.

“Yeah,” comes a high pitched little voice, “you did, too,” and Nicole realizes Wynonna’s younger sister is talking to her, and she looks down at her in surprise.

“Uh,” she starts, coughing, “thanks”.

Would you look at that.

***

Nedley drops both girls home, and for the first time Nicole realizes they’re two people with as much of a past as herself as she stares at the strange little house in the middle of nowhere and with all the lights turned off.

Waverly Earp, eleven years of age, pulls out keys from her front pocket and Nicole is well aware not even herself has keys for Nedley’s house, he says she’s too young to need them.

Waverly Earp opens their front door and Wynonna Earp turns on the lights and they walk inside the soulless house with the uncut grass and the old swing and Nicole realizes she knows very little about the world around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "oh my god he did it again" you say as you stare at yet another daily update.  
> i chuckle nervously and beg good old jesus h christ to keep me blessed by polyhymnia.


	4. Chapter 4

13.

Nicole Haught wakes up at exactly 6 in the morning every day.

Saturdays are not an exception, so she allows herself a few minutes enjoying the warmth under her blankets and the warm heat of the rising sun by the window before getting up.

Every Saturday is the same: she gets up before Nedley, who sleeps late after a 24 hour shift the day before, showering in the still not quite hot water and making coffee and eggs for herself. She makes some for Nedley, separating the bread for his toasts and leaving it inside the oven so the food won’t get too cold.

She puts her hat on, opens the curtains of the living room to allow the sun in before going outside to tend for her garden. She goes into the small shed by the backyard, gets the utensils she knows she will need, sipping on her warm coffee as she goes.

She finally gets to her destination, dropping her coffee mug on the ground. It bounces against the grass, not breaking.

Nicole Haught stares at the numerous little red tomatoes staring back at her, and then she takes off in a sprint.

“Sir! Nedley, sir!” she yells as she ascends the stairs two steps at a time. She trips on the last one, stumbling to her knees before getting up as if nothing happened, “Nedley, sir!” she repeats, slamming open the door.

Nedley is up in a heartbeat, blindly searching for his gun.

“What is it?” he half yells, half whispers in desperation, eyes wide as he scurries off the bed looking for the key to the locked drawer his gun is kept in.

“The tomatoes are ready!” Nicole tells him, all heavy breathing and fast heart beat.

Nedley stops in the middle of the room, perfectly still.

“What?” he asks, eyes wide, chest heaving.

“The tomatoes! We’re having them for lunch today!” Nicole tells him, arms flailing around her.

“Jesus _Christ,_ kid,” he sighs, sagging against his bed with a heavy sigh, “I thought there was a damn break in or somethin’,” he grumbles, hands over his face. “Ya damn nearly killed me”.

“Ain’t ya a cop, sir?” Nicole asks, sitting down on the bed beside him. She’s so light he hardly feels it sink. “S’posed to be always ready n’ all”.

He looks over at her with narrowed eyes.

“Ain’t workin’, am I?” he asks her. She shrugs.

Then she slaps his belly.

“The tomatoes, sir!” she repeats for what he feels is the hundredth time.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re havin’ ‘em for lunch,” he groans, “I got it, kid. Let me go back to sleep”.

She narrows her eyes, slapping his belly again.

“Don’t be like that, sir,” she warns, “they’ll know of ya grumbling”.

Nedley sighs, smile obvious as he smothers his face against his blankets.

“Go pick ‘em n’ let me sleep, ya little devil”.

***

Nicole knows tomatoes are usually ripe around late summer.

(she’s read _some_ books, thank ya kindly).

She also knows cucumbers are not an exact science, taking as long as they feel like it to grow. They need lots of water and shouldn’t be exposed to the direct sun.

(she’s read quite a lot about them: she likes the lack of preciseness their growth is based on. It reminds her of herself).

The cabbages are an entirely different story: they’re pretty much ready when you say they are. She wants real big ones, though, so she decides to wait it out.

So she finds a big basket in the kitchen cabinet, fixing her hat on her head and walking out in the warm sun to pick the tomatoes and the cucumbers and fertilize the cabbages, they’re heavy feeders and always needed a lil’ more than everyone else.

Bare knees against soft soil, bare feet digging into wet earth, she picks the tomatoes carefully, with caution as not to break their stems or rip any leafs. She smiles as she does it, the sheer quantity of them a delight almost as delicious as the first bite she takes of one of them, still warm from the sun and a little wet with dew. It explodes inside her mouth, tangy and soft and sweet and perfect, and she’s sure she’s going to be alright.

***

She walks inside with a basket full of Italian tomatoes and cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, which have gone a little yellow because of the sun, and she tells them she’s sorry and she’ll pay a little more attention to their brothers and pick ‘em sooner and keep ‘em in the shade.

She washes them all, picking up a nearly drowned bug between her fingers and taking him outside, placing him on the grass.

She thinks she’ll ask Nedley to look up a recipe with lots of tomatoes on the internet, and wonders if maybe he’ll let her buy some basil and oregano and rosemary seeds.

***

They cook their own tomato sauce, thick and fresh and perfect, Nedley smiling warmly as she thanks the tomatoes before slicing them open, Nicole telling him he can’t screw up the recipe because that’d be a disrespect to her friends.

He doesn’t bother to tell her not to say that word, and they eat in a silence which feels like fuzzy blankets and smells like freshly cut grass and homemade food.

***

“That’s a lot of tomatoes,” Nedley tells her the next day, smiling down at the basket, still full.

“I was thinkin’ ya should give Lonnie some,” she tells him, “he gave me a present, last time”.

Nedley nods, thoughtful.

“His wife would like that,” he tells her, fussing up her hair as Adore Delano tells them she’s a Libra.

Nicole watches distractedly, deep in thought.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” Nedley asks minutes later.

“Ya think Wynonna Earp would want tomatoes?” she asks him, honest and full of something Nedley has lost a lot of time ago.

He smiles.

***

Wynonna Earp does _not_ want tomatoes.

Nicole hands her a brown paper bag full of tomatoes and two cucumbers, and she stares at her, dumbfounded, asking what that is.

Nicole tells her it’s a present. She opens the bag, investigating the vegetables with a mixture of terror and beguilement before laughing so loud Nicole has to tell her to shut the hell up, they’re in school.

“Are you gifting me with a bunch of vegetables?” Wynonna asks her, still staring inside the bag and very much wondering if Nicole is just a glitch in the Matrix.

“Grew ‘em myself,” Nicole tells her with pride, already used to not understanding why Wynonna is laughing 80% of the time.

Wynonna looks up at her, laughter shinning in her eyes, and Nicole watches with surprise as she softens like warm butter.

“Thanks, Swoosh,” she smiles a smile so rare Nicole isn’t even sure it is a smile, “Waves will like them”.

That day, Nicole learns gifting others with homegrown vegetables is really a hit or a miss, or both, if said others is Wynonna Earp.

She also learns Wynonna might be a little more amicable than what she tries to make others believe.

And then she also learns the strange little girl with eyes full with wonder likes fresh vegetables.

14.

“RuPaul’s what?” asks Wynonna, bouncing an orange ball up and down.

John Henry, or Doc, as he calls himself, sits on the grass behind them, fifteen years of age and rolled up cigarette in his lips. Rosita lays beside him, head resting on his lap and feet up on Xavier Dolls’ thighs.

Nicole wouldn’t consider the strange teenagers her friends, not really, but they seem to come as a package with Wynonna’s strange friendship, and she doesn’t mind. They watch with little interest as her and Wynonna sweat even under the crisp weather, their one-on-ones eternally evolving into a mix of sportsmanship and MMA.

If her first year in Purgatory has taught her anything, it is that she is painfully competitive, a trait only matched by one Wynonna Earp.

“RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Rosita yells at them before Nicole can reply, too busy dodging Wynonna’s careless shove. “It’s a fun show”.

Nicole feels that strange little sting of approval, ears burning.

“Nedley loves it,” she says, stealing the ball from Wynonna and retreating, avoiding grabby hands and not quite innocent pushes.

“The Sheriff likes drag queens?” Rosita asks, laughing, “that’s rich”.

“He’s a very nice man,” Doc mumbles, chewing on his cigarillo, “I like him”.

“He is,” Nicole says as she runs past them, Wynonna fresh on her heels. She considers for a second before jumping and shooting the basketball.

It hits the old wooden backboard of the municipal park’s small basketball court, barely sizeable enough for Wynonna and Nicole to really have any fun.

Then it goes in the hoop.

Dolls and Rosita whoop, cheering. Wynonna curses behind her.

“I’ve taught you everything you know, Fresh Prince,” she grumbles, jogging after the ball, “don’t forget that”.

“N’ so the student becomes the master,” Nicole mocks. Rosita laughs.

Nicole stretches, groaning before sitting down on the cold grass. She briefly wonders if her plants are doing alright with the cold.

“Tired, Hagrid?” Wynonna asks with a wiggle of her eyebrows, kicking Nicole’s shin as she places down the basketball.

“Stoppin’ while I’m ahead,” Nicole returns, retreating her impossibly longer legs and sipping on her bottle of water.

Wynonna groans, saying something about cowards, but settles down as well, throwing herself on the grass face first.

“Ya fancy gettin’ all itchy?” Nicole asks her, putting on her thick flannel button up over her T-shirt.

“Will you ever stop talking like a cowboy?” Wynonna replies, voice muffled by the grass.

“Nah,” Nicole says, smiling, “god willin’”.

She watches as Rosita chuckles and Doc smiles at her and she wonders if being alone is really all that she wants to think it is.

***

“Been smokin’?” Nedley asks gravely when she returns home, fingers icy and feet hurting from the long walk.

“’S just Doc,” she tells him with a roll of her eyes, “dontcha worry”.

He looks over with narrowed eyes.

“I’m worried about Ferdinand,” Nicole says before he can start whining about teenagers and drugs and death, plopping down on the couch.

“Who’s that?” Nedley asks, brow furrowed.

“The basil, sir,” she rolls her eyes, “ya still ain’t rememberin’ their names”.

Nedley groans.

“Too many damn names,” he tells her, returning to his newspaper.

She hums, too tired to tell him there are only 23 names. That’s a fairly reasonable amount, thank ya very much.

“Still not admittin’ ya have friends?” Nedley asks her, lips quirked up.

“I have friends,” she replies, “Ferdinand, Guillermo, Mindy, Caleb, Klaus, Ruby, Emily, Timothy-“ she starts counting them on her fingers, and Nedley sighs deeply.

“Wynonna, John whatever the hell, Rosita, Xavier,” he adds with a grin.

Nicole huffs.

“I’ll take Wynonna,” she tells him, “the others came in the package”.

She pretends not to see his knowing smirk, and she pretends her heart does not feel so full it is nearly painful at the knowledge that he remembers all of their names.

He pretends he does not notice how much she’s changed, how much she’s grown, and he pretends he is not proud of the lanky thing in front of him, full of pride and solitude and goodness.

***

Nicole likes having lunch by herself, she really does.

She starts taking gardening books and magazines to school, and she likes reading them as she eats her sandwiches and watches the kids she doesn’t know walk by, too immersed in their faux kingdoms and awful homework and ever-lasting friendships to notice the girl with the Stetson hiding long red hair, in ripped jeans and heavy boots and a fleeced denim jacket.

She’s watching them, and then she sees the eyes of Athena and the face of Até, streaked with tears.

Waverly Earp, almost thirteen years of age, runs into the girls bathroom, and Nicole tells herself to stay put and ignore it, but Waverly is still the prettiest girl in her world and still her best friend’s little sister and Nicole is still so very good, so she throws the rest of her sandwich in the trash can and rolls up her magazine before putting it in her back pocket, and then she’s slowly opening the bathroom door.

Waverly stands in front of the mirror, splashing her face with water and quietly talking to herself.

Nicole realizes she shouldn’t be where she is, but Waverly catches her eye before she can leave.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, voice cold and cutting.

Nicole knows she’s not Waverly’s favorite person: Waverly is bright and lively and addicted to attention, a big sunflower turning round and round as not to miss the sunlight. Nicole loves hiding and putting her head down and her garden, a small cucumber hidden in the shade as not to lose it’s color.

It does not help that she’s Wynonna’s friend, which Nicole quickly learned meant Waverly believed she was at fault for making Wynonna a rebel and a deviant and all Waverly did not want for herself.

And she _did_ tell her one of her best friends had a big ol’ head that one time.

Not her best moment.

“Saw ya,” Nicole starts, coughing, “cryin’,” she tries, and Waverly rolls her eyes at the girl standing still by the bathroom door.

Silence, heavy and uncomfortable.

“Just wanted to see if ya doin’ alright,” Nicole shrugs, stepping forward with caution.

Waverly huffs, and Nicole wonders if she’ll ever see her without so much resentment.

“Just dandy,” Waverly says, displaying a fake smile so similar to the smiles she parades around school that Nicole feels a prickle down her spine.

Nicole stares at her reflection, clenching her jaw, until the smile disappears, and then brown eyes are staring into caramel and grass and unknown planets.

“Miss Earp,” Nicole starts, ignoring the indignant huff at the courtesy. Damn Earps know no manners, she tells herself. “Ya shouldn’t have to hide every time ya ain’t doin’ too good”.

She doesn’t wait for Waverly to reply before she turns around and leaves.

***

Nicole is bored.

Winter vacation has arrived, and though she doesn’t necessarily _like_ going to school, she likes basketball and Wynonna and learning about plants and rocks and numbers, but the cold and the snow mean she can’t play basketball in the park and most of her plants are done for the season and she is too proud to call up Wynonna to see if they could find something to do, so she figures the next best thing is gathering what’s left of her vegetables in a brown bag and ask Nedley to drop her off at the Earp’s strange house so she can pretend she’s just there for what has become a kind of monthly tradition of her giving Wynonna some of her homegrown vegetables.

(Part of the tradition is Nicole acting like she’s giving Wynonna the vegetables because Wynonna sucks at basketball for all the junk food she eats, and Wynonna acting like the monthly gifts are the stupidest things in the world despite the fact that she never lets any of the food go to waste and she even congratulated Nicole once for how big her cabbages were).

So Nicole takes a deep breath and holds onto the bag tightly before ringing the doorbell.

It does not work.

How anticlimactic, Nicole would’ve thought, but she pays very little attention to her English classes, so she does not know that word.

She knocks instead.

She hears soft footsteps padding down towards the door, and she waits and waits and waits and then the door is open and Waverly Earp, now thirteen years old and wearing unicorn pajamas is standing in front of her.

She frowns.

“It’s you,” she says.

“Mornin’, miss Waverly,” Nicole greets, ignoring the comment.

The only damn thing her father taught her was to be polite and she’d rather die than not follow his rare advice.

“Is Wynonna home?” she asks, trying not to shake with the icy wind.

“She went out to get groceries,” Waverly tells Nicole.

Nicole frowns.

“Ain’t that ya daddy’s job?” she asks, genuinely curious.

Waverly scoffs.

“What is it to you whose job is what?” she replies, and Nicole concedes.

“Sorry,” she says, looking back at the snowy walkway, “she went walkin’?”

Waverly looks two seconds away from slamming the door on her face, but she answers her with a strange look.

“Driving,” she says, “daddy’s teaching her”.

Nicole tries to ignore the fact that the teaching still seems to be going on and that Wynonna is not sixteen quite yet.

“Ah,” she says instead. A strong shiver runs down her spine with the wind.

“Um,” Waverly hums, unsure, “come in?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole is too cold to be polite about it, walking inside.

“Nedley just went over to the Station real quick,” she assures Waverly, “I’ll be outta ya hair in no time”.

Waverly stares at the bag in her hands.

“Ah,” she shoves the bag forward abruptly, and Waverly jumps, startled. Nicole clears her throat, “that’s for you guys,” she says, scratching the back of her neck.

Waverly grabs the bag, opening it with caution. She stares at the carrots and beets and the cauliflower and the one small little squash, eyes filled with wonder.

“What’s this?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Grew ‘em,” Nicole says, proud, “some carrots, beets, cauliflower and a lil’ baby squash,” she leans down, eye level with Waverly, “her name is Linda,” she whispers.

Waverly giggles.

“You grow them?” she asks, picking up the small squash.

“Yes ma’am,” Nicole puffs out her chest, smiling wide, “Wynonna said ya liked tomatoes once, but ain’t their season yet”.

Waverly looks at her in surprise.

“You’re the one who gives us all those bags?” she asks, and Nicole frowns, confused.

“Yes ma’am,” she repeats, “didn’t Wynonna tell ya?”

Her heart sinks a little, strange and heavy and foreign.

“She just said it was her friend”.

Her heart soars, strange and light and foreign.

Would you look at that.

***

When Wynonna comes back home, Nicole is distracted telling Waverly how to make tomatoes grow just right, and the smack to the back of her head scares her so much she lets out a terribly high yelp.

Waverly giggles, and her ears go red.

“Whatcha doing here, Stringbean?” she asks, arms full with grocery bags.

Nicole stands up, quickly scurrying to relieve her of some of the weight.

Both girls stare at her with amusement and bewilderment as she follows Wynonna into the kitchen, mimicking her as she places the bags on a small wooden table.

“Came to bring ya some vegetables,” she tells her, looking over at Wynonna and imitating the way she removes the food from the bags and places them over the counter. “Ya getting’ a lil’ squishy”.

Wynonna scoffs, indignant, but moves over to the brown bag and peeps inside, smiling as she steals the squash from Waverly’s hands.

“This guy’s so cool,” she says, and Nicole feels pride wash over like a hot bath after a cold day.

“She’s a lady, thank ya kindly,” Nicole says.

“Her name’s Linda,” Waverly adds, and Nicole smiles at her.

“You two friends now, uh?” Wynonna asks, placing down the squash before ruffling Waverly’s long hair.

“Ain’t nothin’,” Nicole tells her before Waverly can break her heart, “don’t be gettin’ jealous now”.

Wynonna scoffs.

***

Nicole sits in silence in Nedley’s truck, a sticky pop song playing on the speakers as they make their way back home.

“They live alone?” she asks Nedley.

He hums.

“Not officially,” he replies, eyes on the road.

“What does that mean?” she asks him, eyes on her boots.

Nedley breathes in deeply, letting out the air slowly.

He always takes Waverly with him to their games, but Nicole never thought to ask.

“Their dad ain’t too good a dad is all,” he says, “they take care of each other”.

Nicole thinks of three days of running and walking and being scared for she did not know where to go or how to buy train tickets or where she would sleep.

“Like mine?” she asks him, somber.

Nedley considers the question.

“No,” he says, “I guess…” he starts, thinking. The car slides ever so slightly over the icy road. “Ya dad ain’t too good a person,” he says, “their dad just ain’t too good a dad”.

That day, Nicole learns what the word absent means, and she wonders if it’s better to be raised by strong hands and heavy breathing or by a pale ghost and a distant voice.

15.

Nicole sits by the window, ignoring the teacher going on and on and on about Shakespeare and hidden meanings and stupid romance.

And then the door opens, and Lucado comes in with a tall, skinny girl with beautiful brown skin and smart caramel eyes, and Nicole takes off her hat.

***

Shae is her age, which means they have a few classes together, which means Nicole has plenty of time to admire the way the sun comes through the window and reflects on her dark skin and how elegantly she walks and how smart she is.

Nicole wonders if it is normal to want to see how soft someone’s hair is, and what they smell like, and what it would be like to hold their hand.

***

“I like it,” comes a gentle voice, and Nicole’s head shoots up so fast the girl standing in front of her chuckles.

Shae looks down at her with a strange, sly smile, and Nicole thinks of fresh basil and soft bread.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Nicole replies, willing her heart to go a little slower.

Shae smiles wider at her, and Nicole registers this is probably the first person not to say anything about her politeness.

“I liked the hat,” she says, pointing at Nicole’s hatless head, “you had it when I first got here”.

Nicole can’t tell her she took it off because suddenly it felt silly to go to school with a Sheriff’s hat on her head when there was a girl with pretty skin and lovely eyes and a big brain around her.

“It flew off,” she says instead.

Shae stifles a laugh, sitting down in the desk in front of Nicole.

“Flew off, uh?” she smiles, and Nicole is fully aware it’s been at least a month since there was any real wind outside. “That’s a shame”.

Nicole stares at her, considering just getting up and leaving the classroom. She ain’t ever been cool or smart or funny or much of anythin’.

“It’s a good thing you have such pretty hair,” Shae tells her with that same sly smile of fresh herbs and warm dough, and Nicole wonders if she wants to be this girl’s friend.

“Ya do, too,” Nicole says, ears warm and red, “real nice hair”.

Shae chuckles again.

***

Bobo del Rey reminds Nicole of a wolf: he seems to be an everlasting presence, but she rarely ever has to really deal with him, which makes for an uncomfortable existence of constant apprehension for when he will be feeling particularly creative and particularly inclined to aim his creative genius at her back.

The last bell rings, and she leaves the classroom quickly, trying to catch up after Shae and maybe tell her about cabbages or basketball or whatever else pretty girls like to talk about.

And then she hears the name Earp, and she stops by the entrance.

Bobo walks right in front of her, Champ and an ugly boy she’s never seen before in tow.

“Those Earps ain’t shit,” he says, and Nicole prays Champ will stop being a dumb idiot, but the boy says nothing in defense of his supposed friend, “I heard that Wynonna spreads her legs to just about anyone who asks,” he says and Nicole fells the familiar tugging at her fists, head absolutely empty and chest full.

She watches as the ugly boy snickers.

“I wonder if your little girlfriend ain’t doing the same behind your back already,” Bobo del Rey says with the kind of disrespect someone so young should never, ever know.

Champ says nothing, brows furrowed and lips quivering as the ugly boy snickers again.

God _damn_ it.

Nicole lunges forward, pulling Bobo back by his backpack, sight flooded with velvet red and blood thumping in her ears.

She slams him against the lockers, pressing her forearm against his throat before he can open his god-damned mouth one more time.

“If I hear ya talk about ‘em Earps again,” Nicole says so only he can hear, jaw locked and eyes dangerous as she stares at the terrified teenager, his fists moving desperately to pull at her arms. “I’ll make sure ya regret ever havin’ a fuckin’ tongue, ya hear?”

She lets go, Bobo sagging against the cheap metal as he takes in a deep breath.

Nicole doesn’t see Shae looking at her with something she wouldn’t quite recognize, not yet, but she sees Waverly Earp staring with a mixture of rage and thankfulness so confusing Nicole prefers to ignore it.

She’ll be damned if she understands the desire of teenagers and the emotions of kings and queens and the reason why it feels so _good_ to allow the parts of herself she tries to hide to do what they want for a change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know, I know)
> 
> Would also like to thank you guys for the support and the comments and kudos and just for reading! it really means a lot and really does keep me writing so yeah cheers to you all and may our lovely father jesus christ bless your beautiful hearts


	5. Chapter 5

15.

“Didn’t picture you as the fighting type,” says Shae, sitting down beside Nicole on the steps of the school’s staircase, a box of what looks like mac n cheese in her hands.

Nicole looks up, startled. She rolls up the article she’s reading about how to properly take care of fresh herbs.

“Ma’am?” she asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Shae smiles something sweet and saccharine.

“The boy with the Mohawk,” she explains, “saw you two yesterday”.

“Ah,” Nicole deflates, “he was bad mouthin’ my friends”.

The word tastes like sugary rhubarb on her tongue.

Shae hums in response, opening her meal and taking a bite. Nicole stares.

“Ya,” she starts, clearing her throat, “ya havin’ lunch with me?”

Shae looks up, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Is that alright?” she asks.

_Oh my._

“Of course!” Nicole replies, too loud and too fast. Shae smiles, and Nicole shakes her head, “I’m not too used to…” she trails off, certain it is not cool to talk about your own loneliness.

Shae smiles wider, offering her fork to Nicole.

“Nicole, isn’t it?” she asks.

Nicole nods in confirmation, taking a beat too long to bite down on the offered food.

“I like you, Nicole,” Shae tells her, and Nicole is sure she feels the same she will feel when she goes into an airplane for the first time.

***

“Ya been awful cheery lately,” Nedley remarks, resting on the shade of their porch as Nicole whistles, watering her garden with the red hose she begged him to get her.

“Ain’t cheery,” she bites back, eyes narrowed.

He scoffs.

“Ya cheery alright,” he repeats, “somethin’ to do with that pretty girl ya was with yesterday?”

(Nicole had nearly died in embarrassment when Nedley had very delicately turned on the truck’s siren to let her know he’d arrived to pick her up after practice, effectively ruining any possibility Shae would think she was cool).

(Shae had Science Club meetings every Thursday, Nicole had learned, and she would tell Nicole about what they were learning and researching and Nicole couldn’t quite understand how someone could fit so much knowledge in such a little head).

“I ain’t forgivin’ ya for that,” Nicole tells him, eyes as hard as she can make them.

It is a tragically unscary sight.

Nedley chuckles.

“Ya haven’t told me about her,” he comments, a half-hearted complaint.

“That’s Shae,” Nicole shrugs, “ain’t nothin’ to tell”.

Nedley hums.

“I’ll add her to ya list of friends”.

Nicole grumbles about not havin’ no friends, and he laughs.

***

“Howdy,” Nicole greets, pulling a T-shirt over her head.

“Short Shorts,” Wynonna says, tying her shoelaces. Nicole snorts at the nickname.

They walk to the basketball court side by side, the first ones to arrive as usual.

“Guess what,” Wynonna says, reaching for a basketball. Her voice echoes around the empty bleachers.

Not quite empty, Nicole notices.

Waverly Earp sits by herself on the very last bench, a heavy looking book sitting on her lap and a bottle of water on her side. Nicole waves, but she doesn’t wave back.

“What?” Nicole asks, ignoring the way her stomach twitches.

“Guess, Jack the Giant,” Wynonna repeats, swiftly kicking the back of Nicole’s right knee.

She falls over, bony knees slamming against the hard floor, groaning in pain.

“Ain’t guessin’ nothin’, damn it,” she whines, standing back up with a grimace. She takes off after Wynonna, who laughs and laughs and laughs, so loud it masquerades the sound of the heavy ball bouncing against the court.

Nicole throws herself forward, careless, and steals the ball. Wynonna sighs under her breath as she swiftly shoots it.

“Ha,” Nicole mocks as the metal chains rattle. “2 to nothin’,” she scores as Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“Guess!” she repeats.

“I ain’t no mind reader, Earp,” Nicole reminds her, “just say it, will ya”.

Wynonna sighs heavily, reaching for the basketball, which Nicole swiftly holds above her head.

“I changed my mind,” she says, “not inviting you to my birthday party anymore”.

Nicole Haught, fifteen years of age, has never attended a birthday party before.

She hands Wynonna the ball, eyes pleading.

“What? No,” she starts as Wynonna smirks, “change ya mind back”.

Wynonna laughs, shooting the ball over Nicole’s head.

She misses.

“Damn it,” she complains, “anyways, Lankee, Friday at my house. Daddy dearest won’t be home”.

“He ain’t ever,” Nicole says before registering her own words.

Her eyes go wide, but Wynonna doesn’t seem to mind, snorting at the comment.

“See?” Wynonna points at Nicole, “that’s why I like you”.

“Ya don’t like me,” Nicole retorts, ignoring the way her fingertips tingle and her throat feels a little less tight, “ya just like my tomatoes”.

Wynonna laughs.

“Xavier comin’?” Nicole asks.

She isn’t sure why, but she likes him. He’s quiet and serious and smart, and though he is only one year older than her, she feels like he sets an example for her to follow.

He always says he likes her shirts and one time he helped her with an essay for her History class, and it’s nice being helped and complimented and seen.

Or so she is learning.

“Doc and Rosita, too,” Wynonna nods, “all the biggest idiots in the land,” she winks at Nicole, and she knows that’s Wynonna Earp’s way of saying the loves them all.

Nicole thinks of something as she watches Wynonna shoot the ball. She clears her throat.

“Can I bring a friend?” she asks before she can reconsider.

Wynonna turns around slowly.

“All your _friends_ are already _brought_ , Sharpshooter,” she narrows her eyes, “and Waverly lives there”.

Nicole sometimes pretends she is Waverly Earp’s friend, and she daydreams about helping her plant her own garden and asking for help with her History homework and telling Waverly she doesn’t need to be anything other than who she is, but the fourteen year old is harder to understand than Shakespeare’s sonnets.

“Ya ain’t my only friend, Earp,” she says nonchalantly, pretending that having even one friend isn’t one of her biggest accomplishments in life.

Wynonna narrows her eyes, slowly rotating the basketball on her index finger.

“Since _when?”_ she asks, and Nicole snorts.

“Gettin’ jealous, uh?” she asks, eyebrows rising.

Wynonna scoffs.

“Shae Pressman,” Nicole tells her.

“ _Who?”_ Wynonna asks, still rotating the ball.

Nicole follows the movement with her eyes.

“She started comin’ to school here a while ago,” Nicole explains, “she liked my hat”.

Wynonna scoffs.

“Sure, bring your weird hat girlfriend with you,” Wynonna says, preparing to shoot the ball again, “tell her to bring snacks”.

Nicole rolls her eyes, cheeks reddening as the metal chains clang against each other.

“Ain’t tellin’ her to bring nothin’,” Nicole retorts as she hears the approaching footsteps of the rest of their team, high voices talking about boys and going to the gym and wearing make-up.

She is often thankful Wynonna has taken her in.

“Ya really could use some god damned manners,” she says instead.

***

How does one invite the smartest girl in school to go to a weird house in the middle of nowhere to a sixteen year old’s birthday party, whose idea of a perfect party consists of lukewarm beer and stolen bourbon and party sized bags of takitos?

Nicole plops down on the picnic table Shae Pressman is sat at, chatting with some girls Nicole can’t quite remember seeing before about medical school and how scary it is to be starting high school and how boys smell terrible.

“Miss Shae,” she start, scratching the back of her neck as Shae looks over at her, eyes soft and lips quirked up in curiosity.

“Nic,” Shae greets. Her brown eyes look like melted chocolate under the sun.

No one had ever shortened Nicole’s name before, and she feels her stomach erupt in twists and turns and somersaults.

“I have friends,” Nicole tells her seriously.

Shae chuckles.

“I’m sure you do,” she says, smiling softly at the lanky girl with a flannel shirt and old converse shoes in front of her.

Nicole lets out a breath. This is harder than what she thought.

“One of ‘em’s turnin’ sixteen,” she adds slowly.

The back of her neck prickles and her spine tingles.

“That’s… nice,” Shae responds, eyes narrowing. Her friends stare at the exchange as one might stare on as a stranger slipped on a misleading spot of icy concrete.

Nicole breathes in heavily, heart thumping against her ribs.

“Christ,” she whines, “damn it,” she whines again, and Shae laughs, open and sweet and without an ounce of malice.

Nicole likes it.

“Ya wanna go with me? To her party?” Nicole asks, eyes closed, “it ain’t even gonna be fun or nothin’, I’m sure,” she says as if the promise of boredom might make the offer more tempting.

She feels Shae’s soft breathing against her ear. It tickles.

“I’d love to, Nic,” she says, pressing soft lips against her cheek.

***

Nicole’s cheeks hurt for the rest of the day, and when she’s changing into her gym clothes for basketball practice, she notices for the first time as she stares at herself in the mirror that she has dimples.

***

She’s hit in the head by rogue basketballs four times during practice, and the coach asks her if she’s forgotten her damn brain at home and Wynonna laughs so hard the coach has to put her on the bench for ten full minutes.

She doesn’t give a damn.

***

“Nedley, sir?” she asks when he enters her room with freshly washed shirts. She’d washed and dried them today to make sure she had enough options for the barely-a-party-birthday-party tomorrow.

“Yeah?” he asks, throwing his heavy body down on her simple office chair.

“Ya ever had a wife?” she asks, picking up the basket of clothes and meticulously fixing their fold before putting them inside her dresser, one at a time.

He stretches his feet against the carpet.

“Nah,” he says simply.

Nicole considers it for a second.

“A husband?” she asks, cautious.

He snorts.

“No, ma’am,” he says calmly, eyes attentive as he watches her refold a black T-shirt. “Why ya askin’?”

Nicole considers the question.

“I ain’t ever had no boyfriend,” she tells him, voice low as she refolds the same T-shirt for the third time.

“Thank god,” Nedley grumbles.

(She remembers last year when a random boy had said he liked her hair when they were out on the mall to buy Nedley new socks after she’s insisted all of his old ones were old and useless. Nedley had looked so close to having a brain aneurism that she told the boy to go to hell without even thinking, and he’d left with quivering lips and glimmering eyes).

“I ain’t sure I want ‘em,” she mutters, almost to herself. Nicole puts the black T-shirt inside it’s drawer.

It is strange to figure out things which were always there, like noticing a mole right under your eye for the very first time. You could never remember not having it, nor can you picture yourself without it, but it’s presence is not the same as your recognition.

Nedley looks at her with confusion for only a second, before his eyes soften and his mustache trembles just the slightest.

“Can’t say I blame ya,” he says, “they’re a real pain”.

Nicole feels her ribs release their grasp on her lungs.

“Ya ain’t… Ya ain’t bothered?” she asks him as she thinks of caramel eyes and soft skin and saccharine smiles.

Nedley laughs a strange, breathy laugh. The office chair creaks under his weight.

“By what, chicken?”

She sighs.

“By me… bein’ a queer,” she tells him, the word alien and welcomed, so overplayed in her head it feels like a blessing on her tongue.

“If I have to lose ya to someone else,” Nedley starts, straightening up as he looks her in the eye, “I guess I’d rather lose ya to some pretty lady than some smelly boy”.

Nicole laughs.

“Ya ain’t ever losin’ me, sir,” she assures, and when she hugs him he can’t help himself but hold her a little tighter, breathin’ in the light scent of soil and Persian lime soap.

He thinks that if she hadn’t found him three years ago, he’d have gone and found her himself.

***

Shae’s house is the biggest house Nicole has ever seen, and Nedley lets out a low whistle as they stop by to pick her up. Before he can honk the horn, Shae Pressman walks out the door, a tall, serious man kissing her on the top of her head before waving at Nedley and closing the door behind him.

Nicole can’t help but think Shae looks awful pretty in a dress.

She climbs down, opening the door for her, and Shae giggles at the gesture, mimicking a courteous bow.

Nicole closes the door with care, returning to the passenger sit.

“Pleasure to finally meet ya, Shae,” Nedley is saying to the girl, body twisting so he can smile at her, “Chicken here won’t shut up about ya”.

Nicole slaps his round belly, groaning.

Shae giggles sweetly.

“Chicken, uh?” she asks between giggles.

Nicole groans, burying her face in her hands.

“Nedley, sir,” she says, voice muffled by her own palms, “just drive, will ya?”

He laughs a triumphant laugh, and Nicole has to endure fifteen minutes of him embarrassing her in every way he can think of, and Shae laughs, loud and sweet, right hand sneaking up to slowly caress Nicole’s long hair, and maybe it’s not really that bad a car ride after all.

***

“Strange house,” Shae comments, staring at the old wooden house.

“Ain’t it?” Nicole agrees, hand itching to hold the other girl’s hand.

She’s slowly learning to differentiate between shoving Wynonna as they play basketball and laughing at the way Doc speaks about horses and the comfort of talking to Rosita about drag queens and the delightful silence she can only share with Xavier and the soft, ever present yearning to touch Shae’s soft skin and smell her hair and look into her eyes.

(she ignores how hard it still is to differentiate one Waverly Earp).

She knocks on the door.

“Haught sauce!” Wynonna yells, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a handful of takitos on the other.

Nicole wonders how she managed to open the door.

“Earp,” she greets, gesturing towards Shae, “this is Shae. My friend,” she says, ignoring the way Shae lets out the softest little snicker and Wynonna smiles knowingly at her, as if the entire universe had sensed Nicole’s queerness right before she did.

Oh well.

“ _Mi casa es su casa,”_ Wynonna gestures grandly, and Shae holds Nicole’s hand before they walk inside.

Would you look at that.

***

Nicole’s significant list of life experiences is greatly filled on Wynonna’s birthday party.

***

They settle on the old couch, and Nicole says she isn’t going to drink about five times before Xavier is handing her a beer with an apologetic look.

Shae is already on her second glass of bourbon and Nicole is strangely impressed. Wynonna is openly and obviously impressed, saying Nicole can leave now that they’ve found someone cooler to hang out with.

Nicole chucks the cap of her longneck on Wynonna’s head.

The beer tastes absolutely terrible, but Nicole likes the way she looks when she swings the bottle, and she likes the warmth it brings her, and she likes how it seems to make everyone else a little more at ease now that everyone is drinking.

“Where did you come from, Shae?” asks Doc, a little too interested in her, and Nicole knows him enough that she takes a hold of her hand again.

Shae smiles.

“Vancouver,” she replies, and Rosita and Wynonna look over in surprise.

“Seriously?” Rosita asks, “what the hell are you doing here?”

Shae laughs.

“My dad is a doctor,” she explains, “we move around a lot because he works with healthcare management”.

“What does that mean?” Nicole asks, curious, and Xavier and Doc shoot her a strange look.

Shae doesn’t seem to mind the question.

“He helps the government and some private parties create good healthcare plans, basically,” she says, sipping on her drink, “connecting hospitals, banks, helping them figure out what’s profitable and all that,” she waves her hand around, “I don’t like it too much, to be honest”.

“You don’t want to be a doctor, then?” Rosita asks, and Nicole notices her bourbon has sparkling water and lime edges.

She feels like their younger sibling, clueless and adrift.

“I do,” Shae says, lightening up, “but I want to actually _help,_ you know”.

They nod in understanding and Nicole smiles.

“What did you do to get her to like you, Tippy Toes?” Wynonna asks, pouring herself more bourbon before settling down beside Xavier.

Nicole pretends not to see his breath hitching at their closeness.

“She didn’t have to do much,” Shae answers for her, “just sat there and looked cute”.

Nicole wonders how long it will take for her to just die.

***

She slowly sips on her third beer, laughing as Doc tells them how he managed to get the entire football team to hate him in one night.

(it involved a little too much action with a little too many cheerleaders, because of course it did).

She sits comfortably on the couch, arm around Shae’s shoulder as she feels her shaking with laughter, Rosita interrupting Doc ever so often to add little details about how he wasn’t actually drunk at all and how it’d been his fault that he’d forgotten his bag of tobacco in Brad Wilson’s room. Wynonna is a little too tipsy, cackling louder than usual and holding onto Xavier’s knee a little too tightly.

Someone walks down the stairs.

“Wy?” comes Waverly’s soft voice, and the room goes so silent Nicole feels a prickle behind her neck.

Wynonna looks up, unfocused.

“Hey, Waves,” she says, trying her very best not too sound exceedingly drunk.

Nicole would not say she is successful.

“Are there any snacks left?” she asks, voice strange and small, and Nicole is once again shocked by how different she is from her crown and her smile displayed in school.

Wynonna looks off towards nothing for a second, and Nicole sighs.

“Yeah,” she replies for her, getting up.

Shae says nothing, crossing her legs as she waves at Waverly in greeting. Waverly stares back at her with a strange expression.

Nicole moves to the kitchen, all too used to it after washing bowl after bowl of snacks and fixing most people’s drinks.

Nedley always tells her she’s too polite for her own good.

“Heard ya turned fourteen,” she says, “happy birthday”.

“That was a month ago,” Waverly replies dryly, following her into the kitchen. Nicole brings out the rest of the bags from the paper bags on the corner. “You don’t have to take care of me. I’m not a baby”.

Nicole says nothing, simply shaking her head in disbelief and watching with caution as Waverly seems to consider her options.

“Ain’t getting’ ya no booze, though,” she tells her with what she hopes is a sweet smile.

Waverly looks up at her with something a little too close to disgust.

“I’m never going to drink in my life,” she tells Nicole, and Nicole only nods dumbly in response.

Silence, uncomfortable and infinite.

She tries, she really does, but it’s too hard to understand why Waverly Earp dislikes her as much as she does.

Maybe she’s just that dumb.

Nicole feels hands snaking around her waist deliberately, and sighs in relief as she feels Shae’s light breathing on her shoulder.

She holds her hand.

Waverly stares at them with obvious confusion.

“Shae,” Nicole starts, “have ya met miss Waverly?” she asks.

Shae puts her arm around Nicole’s waist, resting at her side.

“Of course,” she says, smiling warmly, “she’s in the Science Club”.

Nicole starts, confused.

Waverly’s cheeks go a deep shade of red.

“I didn’t… know ya liked that,” she tells Waverly, careful.

“Just because I’m popular doesn’t mean I’m stupid, Nicole,” she replies with disdain.

Nicole feels a strangeness settle in the depths of herself, ears reddening as she inhales sharply.

“I didn’t-” she starts, but Shae cuts her off.

“Wanna hang out with us, Waverly?” Shae asks her, soothing hand drawing light circles on Nicole’s waist.

She likes the weight of Shae beside her, like an anchor. It’s nice to be weighted down, sometimes.

Waverly seems to consider it for a second, and Nicole knows her fourteen year old self would probably jump at the opportunity to hang out with older kids.

“Just for a little bit, come on,” Shae insists, and Nicole can smell the thick scent of bourbon as she speaks.

It is not entirely unpleasant.

***

“You guys are hijacking my baby sister,” Wynonna complains as Nicole forces a glass of water in her hand. Doc is outside smoking with Rosita, though Nicole is pretty sure there is no actual smoking involved.

Waverly sits by herself, uneasy, and Nicole thinks of driftwood in the middle of a sea storm.

“She was up there all by herself,” Shae chastises Wynonna, and Nicole is ever impressed with how easy it seems for her to fit in. It’s effortless and seamless and everything Nicole is not.

She wonders what Shae likes about her.

“That’s because she can’t drink,” Wynonna explains, downing the water as if it’s the worst tasting thing in the world.

Nicole feels her head swimming, fingers and toes numb even as she wiggles them around, willing them to be normal.

“We can’t, neither,” she reminds Wynonna, who scoffs.

“See?” she says, staring up at the ceiling as she throws herself down on the rug, “we can’t trust the Sheriff’s kid”.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Niece,” she corrects, and Waverly stares at her with curiosity.

“Potato, tomato,” Wynonna waves her hand dismissively, and Shae chuckles as Xavier rolls his eyes.

Waverly chews on her bag of chips with strange studiousness, as if her every move is calculated. Nicole feels uncomfortable under her stare.

Waverly Earp looks at Shae and Nicole’s joined hands before looking away.

“What I really wanna know, Red,” Wynonna starts, and the tone of her voice tells Nicole to get up and run away and never come back to the strange house with the strange girls. “Is when you’re gonna kiss your girlfriend”.

How does that prayer go again? Our Father who art in heaven?

Nicole desperately tries to remember as her heart slams against her ribcage. Her brain swims against a heavy tide of desperation and embarrassment and something else, time slowing as she registers Shae’s small little gasp and Waverly’s wide eyes and Xavier playful roll of his eyes.

It’s just Wynonna, she tells herself.

“After ya kiss ya boyfriend,” she replies, thanking our lord and savior Jesus Christ for what she considers was quite fast thinking.

For her eternal personal tragedy, Wynonna smirks in defiance before sitting up and pulling Xavier down by his shirt. He looks only mildly confused before she presses her lips against his, and Nicole feels a little sorry for the way he closes his eyes and tries his hardest to hide his smile when she lets him go.

Oh god _damn_ it.

Wynonna looks at her, challenging.

For some reason, Nicole’s eyes drift towards Waverly Earp, and the look of despair and confusion and sheer _anger_ in her eyes sets the little ticking clock inside Nicole Haught.

She holds the back of Shae’s neck with gentle care before her lips touch the very first lips they ever did touch. It is tangy and soft and sweet and perfect, freshly picked tomatoes still enveloped in dew and warm with the early sun, and Nicole is scared her heart might break her own ribs.

She feels Shae respond and she feels her lips inviting her in and she feels her tongue pressing against so much unfamiliarity she wonders if she will go insane.

And then it’s over and Shae is smiling at her with a knowing little sly look, and Wynonna is wiggling her eyebrows as if she’s just done her a huge favour and Xavier is winking at her and Waverly Earp is walking up the stairs, two steps at a time.

***

The very next day, Nicole picks wild flowers which are growing in the weeds around her garden and she tells Shae she’s pretty n’ smart n’ real nice and maybe they could be girlfriends if it’s alright with her and Shae smiles her pretty smile and kisses Nicole right in front of the entire school and Nicole wonders what she’s ever done to deserve so much in such a small town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what's happening but apparently it will not stop so enjoy it while it lasts.  
> On a different note, thank you once again for the incredibly nice comments. you guys are the best.


	6. Chapter 6

16.

Nicole stretches lazily under the sun, pulling down her hat so it covers the upper half of her face. The grass underneath her body tickles her back and her neck and her forearms.

She takes a deep breath, the smell of soil and fresh stems and cucumbers tickling her nose with their greenness. Her long legs stretch impossibly longer as she basks in the warmth of a friend, and she smiles.

She likes being alone: Nedley had left for a law enforcement Congress on the next town over, taking advantage of the paid expenses to escape from Nicole, as he put it himself.

(he looked suspiciously close to crying when he left, though, whining about how he didn’t want her to be alone and telling her he bought frozen pizza and saying he’d call as soon as he got there).

(she’d felt strange at first, the house too large and the silence not dissimilar to the one she was so used to, and she briefly considered going over to Shae’s place, the yelling of her two younger brothers and the normalcy of her parents so soothing it was almost a dream, but then she noticed she liked talking to herself and eating without Nedley telling her to close her mouth, so she spent the entire Friday afternoon eating gummy bears and watching gory horror movies).

She’s almost asleep with her head resting under the tomato leaves when she hears Shae Pressman’s voice.

“I thought the hat had flown away,” she says, and although Nicole cannot see with it resting over her eyes, she can hear the sly smile in Shae’s lips.

She’s glad the redness on her ears is hidden away.

“It went and flew right back,” she says, stretching with a yawn as she hears the approaching footsteps, “a mystery,” she smiles, putting the hat on her head as she sits up, careful not to bother her plants.

Shae is standing right in front of her, summer dress allowing her skin to glow under the sun, and Nicole feels warmth inside her stomach.

“Howdy, ma’am,” Nicole greets, tipping her hat.

Shae smiles a familiar smile, sitting down beside Nicole.

Shae’s lips taste like cherry lip gloss and mint toothpaste and Shae herself, and Nicole feels her head swimming the same way it does when she drinks Wynonna’s warm beers.

“Ya gonna ruin ya pretty dress,” she speaks against Shae’s lips, the hospitality of her breath welcomed after a morning of solitude.

“I don’t mind, cowboy,” Shae whispers against her lips, and she feels her tip the hat back before her lips are on Nicole again, and the way her smell and her touch and her everything blends in with Nicole’s garden makes her think of the goddess Demeter.

(she’s read a book or two, thank ya kindly).

It is only when their lips are numb and Nicole’s back hurts from trying to hold both their weights upright as Shae, innocuous as she never is, grinds against her thighs that they stop to really breathe, and Shae rests her head on Nicole’s lap as she stares with wonder at the garden behind them.

“I still can’t believe you’ve grown all of this by yourself,” she says, voice still airy as it melts away under the afternoon sun.

Nicole smiles, hands moving to brush away the baby hairs on Shae’s forehead.

“Ain’t too useless, uh?” she asks, only half joking, and Shae playfully shoves her stomach.

“Never,” she says.

In moments like these, with the comfortable joy of being a teenager and the warmth of a partnership and the endless greenery, Nicole believes it.

***

“Hungry?” Nicole asks, hair wet from her shower after Shae spent five minutes complaining about how much soil covered her skin.

Shae smiles from her place on Nicole’s bed, mindlessly flicking through a book on summer gardening.

“You could say that,” she says with the glimmer in her eyes that makes Nicole’s stomach feel like an endless void.

Nicole stands perfectly still on the doorway as Shae looks at her with a glow of playfulness.

She pets the bed.

“Saddle up,” she smiles.

Nicole feels her feet weighting down like lead, mouth dry and palms sweating.

She walks slowly, sitting down on the bed as Shae looks on at her with obvious amusement.

“Relax,” she says, voice soft and safe.

Nicole breathes out, hand resting on Shae’s waist as their foreheads connect.

“Ya done makin’ me all tingly,” she says, cheeks red, and Shae laughs, raw and sweet.

It is nice being a teenager and knowing everything there is to know about pain and love and life.

***

The thing Nicole likes the most about Shae is how easy it is to be with her: Shae is open and honest and smart, she tells Nicole what she likes and what she does not like, she kisses her lips without fear or apprehension, she helps Nicole with her homework even when Nicole pretends she doesn’t need help.

She has the sort of parents Nicole always dreamed of having: they’re sweet and attentive and kind, and they seem to like Nicole, too, always inviting her over for lunch on Sundays and going on and on about how well-mannered she is and how nice it is that she is the sheriff’s daughter, he’s such a good man. Nicole likes Shae’s brothers, too, they’re as energetic and filled with wonder as she was when she was eight years old, though there is no impossible bridge of drug use and backhanded slaps between them and their joy. She likes playing basketball and soccer with them, always letting them win even though she’s twice their size and maybe five times as good a player as them both, and Shae likes to watch them chasing her around as she sips on her iced tea and she laughs when Nicole is tackled down by two children.

Being with Shae is like glimpsing in a world Nicole was never privy to, a world of normalcy where there is always food in the fridge and a father never hits his children and a mother does more than look up at the ceiling as she mumbles about aliens and secret governments and how dangerous it is to go outside.

And Shae _likes_ Nicole, obviously and openly and clearly, she tells her so whenever she can and she smiles when Nicole brings her vegetables as if she’s receiving Swarovski crystals and she holds Nicole’s hand.

And Nicole _likes_ Shae, her skin is soft and her laugh is music and she’s the sort of person no one can dislike, not truly.

So as Nicole kisses her lips with a little too much desperation and Shae not so innocuously grinds against her thighs and everything feels hot and fuzzy and scary, she thinks it is nice being a teenager and knowing everything there is to know about pain and love and life.

***

Shae’s dress is scandalously high and outrageously crumpled when Nicole’s stomach feels heavy and strange and she asks her to stop.

Shae does so, sighing heavily, not inpatient, but tired, as if taking a breath, sitting down beside Nicole’s lap and fixing her dress with a giggle.

“Are you okay, cowboy?” she asks, hand moving to brush against the wetness on Nicole’s lips.

Nicole smiles.

“Ya can’t do that to me,” she drawls, catching her breath, “ain’t got a strong heart”.

Shae laughs, and maybe sixteen years of age is not enough time to have cardiac arrests, but Nicole’s heart feels like a fragile thing made of hollow bones and soft feathers and she does not want to find out what would happen if it could no longer fly up.

Nicole thinks of a question. Shae’s ease, her experiences have always puzzled her.

“Ya ever…” she starts, cheeks burning, “ya ever done it?”

She feels like she’s eleven years old.

Shae’s lips quirk up, ever so softly.

“By it you mean have sex?” she asks, eyebrows raised with defiance and the right kind of malice.

“Quit mockin’ me, missus,” she groans, pulling her pillow to cover her face.

Shae giggles.

“Yeah,” she says, no longer laughing, “I have”.

Something burns inside Nicole, but she is not sure if it is good or bad or meaningless.

She hums in response, low and muffled under the pillow.

Shae pulls it off her face, face serious as she throws it on the end of the bed.

“What is it, Nic?” she asks, soft, small hands holding onto Nicole’s wrist as if her touch could bring her back to the land of the living.

Nicole sometimes thinks it could, if she touched her just right, with wet kisses and low hums. How wonderful it would be to have enough power to raise the dead.

“I ain’t too…” she trails off, forearm covering her eyes as she feels embarrassment swallow her whole, “experienced”.

Shae lays down beside her, the bed dipping with her movements.

Nicole likes the slight crookedness of the mattress, the way it sinks as if to bring them closer.

“I know,” she assures her, hand resting on Nicole’s clothed stomach. She can feel the warmth radiate through the soft cotton. “I don’t expect you to”.

Silence, like putting your head underwater and listening to the echoes of the world around you.

“Ya done it and ya drink bourbon neat and ya make friends everywhere,” Nicole says, voice rippling against crashing waves.

“So?” Shae scoffs, “you have a wider selection of vegetables than Wallmart and you made 62 points on your last game and you’ve never spoken ill of anyone in your entire life”.

Nicole snorts.

“That ain’t right,” she smiles, “I told Waverly Earp the Hardy boy needed an iceberg to ice his damned big head when I was thirteen”.

Shae laughs, the sound bouncing against Nicole’s bare walls, and Nicole laughs with her.

“I’m not sure Champ Hardy counts as a person,” Shae assures her.

“Ain’t too sure, either,” Nicole agrees.

The thing Nicole likes the most about Shae Pressman is that she makes her feel like a human being like any other, not an alien trying to comprehend how to exist within the strange confines of High School or a kid with so much tragedy in her past the principal always looked on with pity or the girl with the oblivious red hair and the strange sheriff’s hat and the queer coded clothing.

***

“I started watching the Sheriff’s show,” Doc says, pulling his denim jacket tighter around himself as the crisp wind picks up it’s pace.

It is a pleasant day, crisp enough so Nicole doesn’t feel sweat gathering on her back, sunny enough that the high schoolers are allowed to have lunch outside with no supervision.

Maybe the last part is just due to the fact that Lucado has grown tired of breaking up fights and telling John Collins to stop smoking inside the staff bathroom.

Nicole, a junior by god’s will and a little push on Lucado’s part on miraculously getting her on all junior classes, eats the sandwich Nedley made her with care, making a mental note to congratulate him on using the Dijon mustard she’d bought last week. Shae sits next to her, basking under the sun as she stretches against the picnic table.

“He ain’t got no show,” Nicole replies to Doc, looking across the table as the boy chews on a solitary piece of beef jerky.

Rosita laughs beside him, sipping on a can of orange soda.

“He means RuPaul’s,” she explains, rolling her eyes as Wynonna steals the can from her hands and takes a sip before dramatically resting her head against the old table.

“Since when does John Henry Holliday like drag queens?” she asks, stretching her arms as Xavier runs his hand on her hair with great care.

“Everyone likes drag queens,” Shae states matter-of-factly, twisting around to steal a bite off Nicole’s sandwich.

Nicole smiles.

She ain’t ever had no one to steal her food before.

Bobo del Rey walks right by their table, pompous as all Sophomores are, puffing out his chest, a small gathering of Freshmen and Sophomores following him with religious attention. Waverly Earp looks on at Wynonna’s stretched form with fondness, and maybe a hint of longing, and Nicole frowns. Champ chases after her like a dog, clueless and witless.

Até, this girl.

Nicole ignores the urge to wave her over, invite her to sit down with them, and Waverly locks eyes with her before the smallest of smiles makes it’s way to her lips.

Would you look at that.

***

They seat on the same table for the rest of the week, Wynonna stretched out as if she owns it, Rosita mocking Doc’s every word, Xavier pretending he is not utterly and irrevocably in love with Wynonna. Shae shares her lunch with Nicole, and Nicole decides it isn’t too bad, having friends.

Not bad at all.

***

Nicole gathers enough basil to make a thick, fresh pesto sauce with fresh cherry tomatoes. She yells for Nedley to come down for dinner.

“Smells good,” he says, voice thick with tiredness and eyes red with lack of sleep.

Nicole can’t remember the last time she woke up with him still in the house.

“Sit down, sir,” she gestures towards his chair, “ya ain’t lookin’ too fresh”.

He chuckles, rubbing his eyes.

“Ya getting’ awful cheeky,” he complains as Nicole brings him a bowl of pasta. He smiles gratefully.

“Ya put the mustard in my sandwich today,” she tells him as she scoops up pasta for herself, “that was real nice”.

He just grunts, too busy with his pasta.

Nicole likes that he noticed the mustard and that he put in her sandwich like it ain’t no big deal and that he ain’t actin’ like he done and did some great favor or somethin’.

She likes that he notices and he cares and he wants nothin’ back.

She sits down in front of him, staring at her own bowl before she speaks.

“Sir?”

He only hums, mouth full already.

“You’re real good,” she says as her eyes go over wrinkles and creases and thinning hair.

Nedley stops eating.

They were never too good with words.

“Just,” she shrugs, hoping he won’t feel like he has to answer and hoping he won’t start crying. The old man is as tough as melted butter. “I’m real glad ya took me in”.

He stares at his own lap, mustache quivering.

“Don’t ya start cryin’!” Nicole chastises, rolling her eyes.

He lets out a teary chuckle.

“Ya all grown up,” he whines, thick voice wet with tears.

Nicole groans.

“Stop cryin’!” she complains again, though her own eyes burn dangerously, “I ain’t ever call ya dad ‘cause my dad ain’t good or nothin’ but you’re my dad, alright?” she says, aggressive tone betraying the love in her words.

She feels a stray tear slide down her cheek and she swears under her breath.

He looks at her with pride and reverence and _love_ and god damn this old fool.

“I love ya, ya hear?!” she says, voice crisp and wet and cutting as he lets out a little sob. “Now quit ya cryin’!”

He doesn’t quit it and she doesn’t, either, and she hugs him right around his round belly and he cries a little more and she’s so very very glad she has a family.

“I only kept ya ‘cause of the garden,” he lets out between sobs, voice muffled as his presses his dumb mustache against her chest.

She laughs and he laughs and it’s all very gross and unpleasant and all that having a loving family is.

***

On Friday, Nicole cannot seem to will her eyes not to look over to a table far from their own, where Waverly Earp talks with girls who look exactly like each other and Bobo del Rey pretends he has enormous biceps and Champ Hardy stares at Waverly as a wolf stares at a rabbit, Wynonna's rambling about her awful excuse of a father long forgotten.

A French fry smacks her on the face.

“Billy the Kid!” Wynonna says, waving her arms.

Nicole looks at her, confused.

“Uh?”

“Whatcha staring at?” Wynonna asks, though something tells Nicole she already knows the answer.

Nicole holds Shae’s hand a little tighter.

“Why does Waverly hang out with those guys?” Nicole asks.

“They’re her friends,” Shae replies, because things are easy and uncomplicated in her world.

Nicole shakes her head.

“They ain’t good,” she says.

Wynonna shrugs.

“They’re popular, I guess,” she explains, but it doesn’t explain much of anything.

“So?” Nicole asks, and Xavier nods in agreement.

He looks over at the table right as Waverly laughs at something Champ has said.

“She fits in,” he explains simply, and the way he says it tells Nicole that he means not that she fits in with them, but that they fit in with Waverly’s wonderland.

It’s a strange thing, really.

“They aren’t too bad,” Shae says, and Rosita hums.

“Lucy and Marie are alright,” she agrees, “they’re on the Science Club, too”.

_How many people are in this god damned club?_

Nicole looks on, eyes narrowed as she watches Bobo play around with one of the girl’s ponytails even as she pushes him away, frowning as Champ laughs and places his meaty hand on Waverly’s shoulder.

She shrugs it off.

***

The next week, Nicole brings a brown bag filled with tomatoes and cabbages to school, but she can’t find Wynonna anywhere. There’s no basketball practice today, and she starts getting a little nervous with the difference in what she had planned for the day.

She was supposed to give it to Wynonna right before lunch.

***

She stares at the bag as Rosita and Shae discuss molecules and atoms and things Nicole cannot quite understand and Doc and Xavier play a version of poker she’s pretty sure Doc has invented the night before.

Wynonna’s probably sick, Xavier had said. He could bring the vegetables with him when he went over to her place to check in on Wynonna.

Nicole was _supposed_ to give it to _Wynonna_ right before god damned lunch.

Things are supposed to be planned and they’re supposed to happen as they’re planned.

She grumbles before standing up, grabbing the bag and holding it as one might wield a shield. She walks over to the table she’s learned to avoid, all too tired of Bobo snickering little comments about idiots and queers and whatever the hell else he was angry with that day.

She stops behind Waverly, closing her eyes as the table goes quiet.

Christ, high school is so _dramatic._

“Miss Waverly,” she starts, ignoring Bobo as he grins something wicked a few seats down.

Waverly turns around so fast Nicole is scared her neck might snap clean off.

“Yeah?” she asks, too confused to put on the mask of anger she loves to wear.

“Can ya give this to Wynonna? She ain’t here,” she asks, handing over the bag.

Waverly stares at it for 6 seconds.

(Nicole counts them slowly in her head).

Then she picks it up, eyebrows raised.

“Thanks,” she says quietly. Expressionless. “She’s sick”.

“Your little girlfriend knows you go around handing out presents to ‘em Earps?” Bobo asks, loud enough for everyone to hear, words sharp and full of poison. Nicole is reminded of poison dart frogs. “Careful, _Waverly,”_ he continues, and the name sounds dirty in his tongue, “who knows what dykes like to give out like that”.

Nicole feels velvet red embracing her, ears ringing and fists clenched.

She tries to remember the scientific name of Ferdinand and Guillermo and Timothy and Mindy.

“Robert,” she starts, voice so low and so unfamiliar it scares even herself, “if ya don’t shut ya god damned mouth n’ learn to respect my girlfriend and ‘em Earp girls,” she looks at him, and he is no longer smiling, “I swear to god almighty I’ll give ya a beatin’ so nice ya ain’t ever openin’ ya dirty mouth again”.

He stands up and the ringing in her ears distracts her from the deathly silence which falls upon the entire cafeteria.

“You’ve made that promise before, queer,” he spits, “and my tongue is still here”.

Nicole doesn’t mind it too much when Robert aims his frustration at her. She doesn’t always pay attention, she certainly doesn’t see red, her nails don’t usually dig into her palms until they draw blood.

But there’s something about the way Robert says it, the way he carries herself, and the way no one says a _fuckin’_ word that makes Nicole feel like there ain’t any hope in the god damned planet.

But still.

Waverly Earp holds her hand and the earth does not rotate and it does not translate and it only sits perfectly still amongst stars and planets and nothing.

“Sit down, Bobo,” says the highest pitched voice Nicole has ever heard, “she’s not going to waste her time with your chauvinism”.

And maybe it’s the way she says it, resolute and final and with very little space for anything but obedience, like a shrug of the shoulder or a harmless little poke, or maybe it’s just sheer surprise or embarrassment or whatever goes on inside his head, but Robert Svane sits back down with a sneer.

Nicole just stands still for a second.

“Uh,” she swallows, “tell Wynonna I hope she ain’t dyin’”.

And Waverly Earp smiles and nods and the world is still and quiet and impossible in it’s nothingness, and Nicole Haught walks away and sits back down and does not look back as Shae rests her hand on her shoulder and whispers _that was kinda hot_ and she feels eyes burning on her back and she wonders what the hell is going on.

***

In 1936, there was a _pronunciamento_ made by generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces against the Republican government.

This declaration culminated in a civil war which went on for over two years and caused atrocious demographic impacts in Spain.

If Nicole Haught was not sure before, she was sure now that she was a Spanish general and Bobo del Rey was the Republican government and she was well and truly fucked.

***

It is starting to feel like a real cold winter as Nicole Haught sits with Wynonna Earp and Rosita Bustillos as they talk about how boys are really the worst and how Wynonna and Rosita cannot wait until they graduate and Nicole complains that she still has over a year to go.

Shae is out of town, visiting her family in Vancouver, as normal families do.

They sip on the cheap vodka Rosita managed to convince a boy to buy for her after promising him she’d give him a real good time after.

(she’d then handed him the five dollars and pecked his cheek and they left, laughing as the young man groaned and yelled at her to come back).

Nicole smokes the terribly rolled up cigarette she’d ruined. Doc had been trying to teach her, but her hands were too big and they shook too much, but she doesn’t mind the presentation as they sit on the parking lot of the gas station and drink and drink and drink.

But the world is not too fond of Nicole, particularly when she has forgotten how awful things can be, so Bobo del Rey walks out of the convenience store, followed by the Hardy boy and two others she has seen a few times before.

There is safety in numbers, and Nicole Haught does not feel safe.

She hopes and prays he will just walk away but she knows with painful certainty that he will not let the little show she helped Waverly put on for the entire school go without punishment.

“Oh my,” he says, voice booming as the orange light of the street lamps sets fire to his white hair.

He looks an awful lot like the devil.

And he is not sober.

“Look what we have here,” he says, voice strangled and trembling with alcohol, though his steps are certain as he approaches them.

“Fuck off, Robert,” says Wynonna, unaware of their Civil War and all too brave for her own good.

Wynonna knows what it is like to be left to fend for yourself, but Nicole knows what it feels like to be punched in the stomach by your own blood and she knows Robert too well, since she knows herself and she knows red velvet and there are scars on her hands from her own nails digging against her palm.

“Shut the fuck up, Earp,” he says, and the way he says it makes Nicole’s spine prickle. “Fuck out of here, the both of you”.

He gestures to Rosita, as if shooing them away.

Nicole gets up, focusing on the three boys standing behind him, shadows cast against cold concrete. Still.

“Ya bodyguards fuckin’ off, too?” she asks him, her voice eerily calm.

“I don’t _need_ help, queer,” he sneers, and she knows his pride is too big to allow the boys to help him beat her up.

God is nothing if not small mercies.

Nicole looks back at Wynonna, who looks ready to break Robert’s jaw.

“I’m fine,” she says, calm as she isn’t, “ain’t nothin’ goin’ on here”.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Nicole,” Wynonna says, and her own name sounds foreign in Wynonna’s voice. “This isn’t a fucking boxing match”.

Nicole clenches her jaw.

“He ain’t mad at ya,” she says simply.

Wynonna takes a swig of her bottle, but does not move an inch. Rosita just crosses her arms.

Nicole turns around.

“Whatcha want?” she asks him, tired. “Call me names? Go right ahead”.

He’s close to her, too close, and his whiskey breath reminds her of her father.

“We never did finish our wrestling match,” he tells her.

“I ain’t interested, Robert,” she spits, eyes narrowed. “Just let me be, will ya?”

Nicole knows anger, and she knows it is not smart and it is not easy and it rarely ever makes sense, so it comes as no surprise when his fist collides against her jaw.

She staggers backwards

“Ain’t nice to punch a lady,” she says, tasting old nickels.

He scoffs before his fist collides against her nose, and she falls on her ass.

“You’re no lady,” he tells her.

Now, the thing about _rage_ is that doesn’t announce itself with angels and trumpets and white horses. It shows up and does it’s job and it leaves you to deal with the consequences.

And maybe the mixture of rage and conflict and alcohol is not that great, because Nicole forgets Nedley and she forgets kings and queens and she forgets Shae and then she kicks Robert’s knee and he falls forward and she launches herself at him, knocking him back against cold concrete and she hears a nice thud as his head hits the ground and then she’s punching his face again and again and again until there is blood on her knuckles and the satisfying crunch of weak bones and there are hands pulling her back as her ears ring.

Someone kicks her on the stomach and someone pulls her hair and punches her face and then glass breaks and she can only open one eye as she hears Wynonna yelling and Rosita yelling and feet scuffing against concrete as they drag Robert away, Wynonna wielding a broken vodka bottle like a sword.

And then the world is but nothingness, not the relief she'd felt before, but the heaviness of unexplainable darkness and the weak ringing in her ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> created a twitter for fic stuff so head on over to @harakiridaddy if ya like


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: The very beginning has mentions of parental abuse and violence.

16.

When Nicole was ten years old, her father handed her 5 dollars and told her to go buy them something to eat.

She walked down the three flights of stairs, out into the cold and sunless afternoon, crossing the street without looking, because no one taught her to look to both sides before crossing the street.

She bought instant noodles on the convenience store on the corner, ignoring the strange looks and the men with the brown beat up coat who passed small packages to the people who stopped and talked to him, whispering. There was change, fifty five cents, to be precise, and she asked the lady who took her money if there was any candy she could buy with those coins.

There wasn’t, but the woman felt bad for her so she said there was, handing her a small bag of gummy bears.

When she got back home with the noodles and the gummy bears, her father asked her where was the change, dirty hands shaking with synthetized adrenaline.

She said there wasn’t any change, and he slapped her across the face before kicking her on the stomach, heavy boot colliding against her small ribs. He’d seen the gummy bears.

She spent the next day in bed, her belly hurting too much for her too move, and there was an ugly purple bruise over her ribs for almost a month.

Sometimes her ribs still hurt, if she slept on her side for too long or if she twisted around too fast.

***

She feels that exact pain as she wakes up, her face swollen and prickly, a million needles poking her nose and her lips and her eye, ribs hurting so much she’s scared there’s something broken or maybe something fixed right back together.

She opens her good eye, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, and a wave of nausea hits her with so much force she feels like she’s still dreaming.

She sits up, lungs and abdomen and ribs burning, frantically searching for anything that is not carpet. There is a bucket with old, bloody water and small ice cubes and she knows that is not it’s purpose but she vomits into it, and the world is nothing but the acrid taste of bile and a little bit of blood and something so bitter it scratches against her tongue, her stomach convulsing against itself so violently it _hurts._

When there is nothing left inside her and her body stops convulsing, she lays back down, eyes closed as she lets out a long, tired breath.

“Yuck,” comes a familiar voice.

Nicole cracks open her good eye, searching for raven hair and icy blue eyes.

“Welcome to the land of the living, Rambo,” Wynonna says with a hint of relief.

Nicole tries to smile, but it probably looks more like a grimace.

“That was fun,” she says, and Wynonna lets out a breathy laugh.

“We thought you were _dead,_ ” Rosita stage whispers, and Nicole cranes her neck up.

Wynonna sits on the floor, back resting against a cheap desk. Rosita sits on a wooden chair, and they both stare at her as if she’s Jesus Christ after he comes out of his burial tomb.

Waverly Earp lingers on the doorway, shoulder against the door frame.

“Is it still Saturday?” Nicole asks no one in particular, and then there is someone handing her a glass of water and two pills. Small, soft hands.

She washes her mouth, spitting into the disgusting bucket Wynonna will probably set fire to later, before swallowing the pills without asking what they are.

She will take what is given to her with gratitude.

“Sunday,” Rosita says, checking her phone, “right past ten”.

Nicole gasps.

“Nedley knows you’re here,” Wynonna says before she can speak, “I told him we were having a sleepover”.

Her very first lie to him.

She feels like she might throw up again.

“He’s gonna kill me,” she groans, sitting up as her ribs protest against her skin. She pulls up her shirt, staring at the nasty purple, and she chuckles, “howdy ol’ friend,” she whispers at it.

The girls’ silence is outlandish, three pairs of eyes staring at her as if a deep breath her way might set her off. It feels a little too much like they’re prey, standing still in hopes she will not notice them.

“I ain’t gonna beat ya up,” Nicole says to no one and to everyone in the room, voice tired and coarse and heavy.

“I’m not scared you’re going to beat me up, dumbass,” Wynonna rolls her eyes with a deep sigh, “I’m scared you’re going to drop dead”.

Nicole shrugs.

“Had worse,” she says, and it hurts because it is true.

“What?” asks Waverly Earp, voice high as the sky itself.

Rosita and Wynonna frown, eyebrows raised in a mixture of shock and disbelief.

Sometimes Nicole forgets how much she is not known. It is such an exhausting ordeal, really.

She coughs an empty cough.

“Can I have some more water, please?” she asks instead of telling them just how bad her father really was, and Waverly is rushing downstairs and Nicole is not sure if she’s eager to help or eager to breathe.

Nicole moves slowly, slow enough to make Wynonna and Rosita wince, deliberately pressing the soles of her feet against the carpet. She’s still wearing socks.

“Hope ya didn’t steal my boots,” she grumbles at Wynonna, who scoffs, relaxing.

“Are you alright?” Rosita asks, voice a little too different for Nicole’s liking.

“Peachy,” she groans as she presses her soles further into the carpet, breathing in and out and in again, shallow breaths becoming deeper and deeper until the shooting spark that is her pain no longer makes her head dizzy and her stomach quivery.

The thing about pain is that it is easy to become accustomed to it. It is like being sick, when you’ve just been feeling exhausted and your head pounds inside your skull and your joints groan against your muscles and you cannot remember what it is like to not be so aware of your body.

The thing about pain is that is passes. It is like when you’ve been sick for five days but you’re slowly getting better and one day you wake up and you’re not tired and your skull does not feel too tight and your joints are as well as they ever were and you cannot remember what it is like to not be alright inside yourself.

Waverly Earp returns with a glass of water and an ice pack and a chocolate bar.

Nicole smiles, so thankful she could cry, and she downs the water in one gulp.

The ice pack presses against her ribs, comforting numbness delighting her senses, and she sighs.

“You guys telling me what happened, now?” Waverly asks, hands on her hips as she stares Wynonna down, and Nicole is truly amazed at the power such a small body contains.

Wynonna groans, hands resting against her face, and Rosita lets out a tired sigh.

“I have to head home,” she says, and everyone is aware she does not have to head home.

Nicole is thankful she stayed until she was sure Nicole was not going to die, though.

That is much more consideration than what she is used to.

“Thanks, Rosie,” she says with something resembling a smile, and Rosita kisses the top of her head before leaving the room.

Waverly raises her eyebrows, urging Wynonna to explain.

“Your little friend showed up,” Wynonna says simply.

Waverly looks shocked.

“Champ?”

Wynonna scoffs.

“Robert,” she says, “his lapdog just watched”.

Waverly stares at Wynonna as if this is the first time she’s ever heard that Robert Svane is not a good person.

“What?” she asks, quiet.

She sits down, and Nicole likes the way the bed dips, as if trying to bring them closer.

She brings the icepack to her eye. Nicole can no longer feel her ribs.

“I told him to…” Waverly starts, shaking her head, “to leave her alone”.

There’s something on Wynonna’s face, an expression she cannot recognize. Frustration, maybe. Anger.

“Thanks, Waves,” she says, laconic, “after four years you finally pull your head out of your ass and that’s what you have to say”.

There are plenty of situations Nicole would rather never experience, but watching the Earp girls argue as she holds an ice pack against her face and chews on a chocolate bar is most definitely up on the top five.

“Just because we don’t have the same _friends_ doesn’t mean my head is in my ass!” Waverly returns, face determined, and Nicole wonders if they will notice if she just up and leaves.

She tries to stand, but her ribs complain and she groans.

“Sit _down,_ T-rex,” Wynonna tells her pointedly.

Nicole swallows dryly, settling against the mattress again.

“It does _mean it_ when your friends are a bunch of ass wipes,” Wynonna tells Waverly, eyes narrowed.

Nicole doesn’t like the tone she is using. Maybe Nedley will come pick her up.

“Oh I am _sorry_ I’m not into vandalizing buildings with a bunch of weirdoes!” Waverly replies, standing up.

“What does that even _mean?_ ” Wynonna throws her hands up in exasperation, “if anyone’s vandalizing anything it’s fucking _Robert_ vandalizing Nicole’s fucking _face_!”

Nicole snorts at the concept of vandalizing someone’s face, and both Earps look at her with so much ice and blade she shuts right up.

“Right, because her knuckles were bloody from all the _gardening_ she does!”

Nicole doesn’t like the emphasis on the gardening part.

“She was _defending herself,_ you idiot!” Wynonna yells back.

“Don’t call me an idiot you little…” Waverly searches around the room, as if the perfect insult will be written on the wall, “you little _punk_!”

Wynonna laughs loud and booming and a little too acid.

“Since when were you fucking _canonized_?” she asks Waverly, fingers pointing so forcefully Nicole fears she will poke someone’s eye out.

Waverly’s eye, namely.

“I apologize for trying to be _good_ , Wynonna,” Waverly tells her, voice bitter as the aftertaste of arugula.

Wynonna laughs and it is full of poison and Nicole thinks of poison dart frogs again.

“Good for who, uh?” she asks, “for _daddy?_ He doesn’t even know your fucking birthday” Wynonna spits, and Nicole can see the regret in her eyes as soon as the words leave her mouth, but they are already out, floating up to the ceiling and casting shadows over them both.

Waverly goes so quiet Nicole starts to feel nervous, a strange prickling invading every pore of her body.

Then she lets out a chuckle, dry and terrible.

“Are you any better, Wynonna?” she asks, and Nicole’s heart aches with how exhausted she looks, “you’d rather drink on a parking lot then spend time with me”.

Wynonna just stares, fingers reaching as if willing to bring back her own words.

“Do you know it? My birthday?” she asks Wynonna, and the girl deflates, melting against the floor, becoming one with the dirty carpet.

Nicole wants to yell at Wynonna that it is on the eighth of September.

(she knows because Champ had brought Waverly chocolates on that date over the last two years, all proud as if he was doing a big, gallant act).

But she does not yell and Wynonna does not know and the silence chokes them all.

Waverly scoffs and walks out.

***

Wynonna sags against the wall, staring at her own socks as Nicole feels the ice pack on her hands slowly melting until it is nothing but water.

“I ain’t,” she breaks the silence, and Wynonna looks up in surprise, as if she’d forgotten she was there, “I didn’t mean to make you fight”.

Wynonna shrugs.

“Not your fault,” she says, quiet and unlike herself, “long time coming, I guess”.

Nicole feels it, too.

“We always think we’re better then what we really are, uh?” Wynonna says, a strange smile on her lips.

“I don’t,” Nicole says in response, touching her own face to assess the damage it has endured.

It is less swollen than what she thought it’d be.

God is nothing if not small mercies.

“That’s ‘cause you’re on a different frequency than everybody else,” Wynonna says.

Nicole frowns.

“It’s a good thing, baby Nedley,” she adds, and Nicole smiles a half smile.

“Ya gonna figure it out. With Waverly,” she assures Wynonna, who only sighs in response.

“God, I hope Robert will leave us alone after you wiped the floor with his face,” she says, changing the subject.

Nicole remembers the reason she is here.

“Did I…” she starts, throat dry, “was it bad?”

Wynonna looks up at her with a look which speaks of respect and maybe a little bit of fear.

“Pretty bad,” she says with finality, “but I don’t blame you. He had it coming for four years”.

Nicole says nothing, thinking that she’s had it coming for sixteen.

***

When Nedley comes to pick her up, she tries her very best to not look like she’s in so much pain she can hardly focus, but he still runs out of his truck with desperation in his eyes, yelling and asking and saying so many things she cannot comprehend as she slowly limps over to the passenger sit.

Wynonna beckons him closer, and Nicole could hug her as she watches from behind the comfort of the windshield as Nedley’s face contort in panic and grief and anger as she explains with uncharacteristic care and patience what happened the day before. She awkwardly pats him on the back before walking inside her house.

Nedley looks dazed, as if drifting into space.

He sits down behind the wheel but does not start the engine.

“Nicole,” he says, quiet, and her name sounds like a warning.

“Sir,” she replies, glad she’s not standing anymore.

“I’m grounding ya for a week. No Shae, no school, no basketball, no nothin’,” he says calmly, as if the resolution was already made long ago.

Nicole guesses it could be worse.

“Yes, sir”.

“And if anyone ever hurt ya again,” he says, hand on the key as he starts the car, “ya better wish ya done killed ‘em, or Imma do it myself”.

As he drives away from the Earp Homestead, Nicole knows his promise and his wish for murder is not true and is not honest, and she finds it she rather likes it that way.

She likes the idea of being loved so deeply by someone they could be the very worst version of themselves if it meant she was safe.

***

Nedley takes her to the ER, and she limps her way to an empty seat as she watches him talk with a nurse as if they’re old friends and she looks over at her and frowns and Nicole remembers she hasn’t even seen her own face yet.

She stares at her boots, quiet, and tries to ignore the way she feels the blood flowing in her bruises.

“Nicole,” Nedley says, gesturing for her to follow, and for maybe the fifth time in her entire life she is seen by doctors and nurses and they take an X Ray of her torso and her ribs are bruised but not broken but two of them are a little misfigured and the doctor explains it means they healed wrong and she ignores the look Nedley gives her, grief and pain and curiosity.

Nedley whispers with a doctor as a nice nurse cleans Nicole’s wounds with impossible gentleness, and there are needles making the pain go away and bandages on her knuckles and she’s shocked with how much can be done for her wounds.

A man Nicole has seen before knocks on the door once, strong and firm, and Nicole locks eyes with him and feels her stomach drop to the floor.

“Sheriff?” he says, and his chin is as sharp as Robert’s.

She stares as the two men talk outside, Nedley looking so angry Nicole’s hair tickles her neck, and the man with the surname Svane looks just as angry, but not at them, and he listens and she can read his lips as he apologizes to Nedley and it is the first time Nicole sees him not as a loving uncle but as the Sheriff of a town filled with drunks and folk tales.

***

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Nedley sighs as they walk inside their home.

Finally.

“Ain’t planning on it, sir,” Nicole assures him, holding the bag of pills in one hand and the milk-shake Nedley got her on the other. “Ya had a talk with Mr. Svane?”

Nedley nods, pulling out a frozen pizza from the fridge.

“His boy was there, too,” he says, somber, “ya done a nasty job, Nicole. Had to get stiches, broken nose”.

Nicole tastes bile, acrid and awful against her tongue.

“Ain’t proud, sir,” she tells him, “ain’t sure what happened”.

He nods.

“Don’t let no one make ya forget you’re good, ya hear?” he tells her, gentle and gruff and tired.

She nods.

“And go take a damn shower”.

***

The “no Shae” part of being grounded lasts two days.

On the third, she’s banging on their door and begging Nedley to let him see her and he lets Nicole hobble down the stairs to open the door for her, grumbling about teenagers as he watches her embarrassingly slow descent.

“Howdy,” Nicole says, well aware of her split lip and her black eye and the way she’s leaning just a little bit to the right.

Shae gasps with Shakespearian dramatics, hugging her tightly until Nicole lets out a pained yelp.

“Sorry, sorry!” she stares, eyes wide as she holds Nicole at arm’s length, “oh my god, Nic!”

Nicole tries to look cool.

“The black eye ain’t doin’ it for ya?” she asks, trying to stand up straight, “thought I looked a lil’ like Clint Eastwood”.

Shae chuckles.

“You _idiot,”_ she groans lovingly, “if I see that jerk again I swear to god-”.

“Ain’t needin’ no swearin’ to no one,” Nicole cuts her off, “I done and broke his nose and he ain’t botherin’ us no more”.

Shae sighs.

“Are you okay?”

Nicole thinks she should up her game now that her good looks are ruined.

“Better now,” she says as smoothly as she can, and Shae chuckles and kisses her cheek before closing the door behind her.

***

Nicole tells her everything, from the unexplainable rage to her split knuckles to Wynonna and Waverly’s nasty fightin’.

She listens with patience as she caresses Nicole’s long hair.

“I leave you for three days and everyone’s fighting everyone”.

Nicole laughs, ignoring the creaking of her ribs.

“See?” she says, smiling, “ya shouldn’t leave me no more”.

The house is quiet in a warm sort of way.

(Nedley left and told them to not get pregnant and Nicole yelled at him that it wasn’t a possibility and Shae laughed and said she’d take care of Nicole and make them all dinner).

Nicole runs her bruised fingers against soft palms, tracing the lines and creases.

“I missed ya,” she says, because it is true.

Shae sighs.

“I did, too”.

***

Nicole feels different.

She feels powerful and a little more sure of herself and a little less like the scared twelve year old who slept on bus stops.

***

She stares at herself on the bathroom mirror, tracing the outline of the lavender over her ribs with almost loving care.

She doesn’t like the way she can see her own bones protruding from under pale skin and she doesn’t like how her arms already look thinner than they did two weeks ago and she doesn’t like the way her hair falls over her face and caresses her back.

But she cannot do much right now about her ribs and she cannot play basketball for the next month, so the only thing she can do is pick up the scissors Nedley uses to fix up his mustache and tie her hair just around her neck and battle with the low quality blades until there is a long, red ponytail in her hands.

She smiles at her reflection, cutting and cutting and cutting. Then she picks up Nedley’s clippers and pushes them as up as they go, on number six since she’s scared she will look a little too much like a skeleton with a buzzcut.

And then she finds she quite likes how soft her hair looks, and the orange makes it look like she’s a peach, and she smiles before cleaning up all the hair and showering and letting all that she no longer is wash away with the cold water.

***

Nedley chokes on his coffee and she’s acutely aware of how often she almost kills him, but it ain’t her fault he’s so god damned soft.

***

She’s not scared of what Waverly’s stupid friends will say and she is not scared of Robert because his nose is bandaged up still and he looks at her with just a little bit of fear and Shae’s eyes go real wide and she goes on and on and on about how hot Nicole looks, and Nicole quite likes the attention and she likes the way Wynonna keeps rubbing her hair and groaning about how soft it is and how Xavier says they look like twins and Rosita says she’d totally bang her, to which Shae slaps her arm with a laugh, and Doc only smiles a knowing smile and Nicole enjoys the breeze on her neck and there is no tingling and scratching.

And Waverly Earp stares at her, the mask of anger back and maybe worse than it was before, though she no longer walks beside Robert Svane, and Nicole likes that she is the cause of a rupture in their High School’s royalty, and she likes the twinkle in Waverly’s eyes and the way she averts them when Shae kisses her, open mouthed and wet and perfect, and she likes that Waverly Earp cannot stop staring at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting quite comfortable with the pacing of daily updates. I was actually trying not to post everyday but then I always have a chapter right there and I can't not post it so yeah.  
> I did wonder if it is maybe too much at once to keep up or whatever? Shine a light, friends.


	8. Chapter 8

16.

Something strange happens.

Wynonna Earp calls Nicole, no teasing and no nicknames, and asks her if she wants to have a cheeseburger. Nicole agrees, telling Nedley she’s going out for dinner and assuring him that yes, she will bring him a double cheeseburger with fries, don’t worry.

For what is maybe the first time in her life, she sits in front of Wynonna in silence. Icy blue eyes stare at the dirty window of the diner, leather jacket wrapped tightly around her body. She sighs.

“Say something with your cowboy accent so I can make fun of you,” she says after they awkwardly order their food, avoiding eye contact.

Nicole scoffs.

“What’s wrong?” Nicole asks, trying not to drawl out the words too much.

Wynonna groans.

“That little prick won’t _talk_ to me!” she says, letting out a long, drawn out breath.

“Waverly ain’t a little prick,” Nicole chastises her.

Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“Why do you even _care_? She won’t go two foot near you”.

It stings a bit, but Nicole pretends it does not. She’s glad the waitress brings them their cokes, sipping on it for a long moment.

“I ain’t needin’ people to like me for me to like ‘em,” she shrugs, “it ain’t always about gettin’. You gotta do a lil’ givin’, too”.

Wynonna groans even louder.

“God, what are you, a shaman? Stop being _wise”._

Nicole laughs. She missed her.

“And I’m not _giving_ because she won’t _let me”._

Nicole considers it.

“Ya did say somethin’ real nasty,” she tells Wynonna.

“I didn’t _mean_ it”.

“But ya did,” Nicole shrugs, hands up in surrender, “she will come around, Wynonna. Give ‘er time”.

Wynonna grumbles something, but it is muffled by her hands as they drag across her face.

The only thing more dramatic than High School is Wynonna Earp.

“I said I _miss_ her, tippy toes,” she says, eyes daring Nicole to acknowledge that she isn’t as scary as she thinks she is.

Nicole allows her lips to quirk up.

“Did ya tell ‘er that?” she asks.

Wynonna shakes her head.

“It’s a good start”.

Wynonna breathes in deeply, quietly thanking their server as she puts down their burgers and fries. Nicole winces as she squeezes an ungodly amount of ketchup right on top of her plate of fries.

“Ya makin’ ‘em all soggy,” she tells Wynonna.

“ _You’re_ soggy,” Wynonna retorts.

Nicole snorts.

“Mature”.

“Shut it,” Wynonna says, mouth full, “I’m almost graduating”.

Nicole feels a trapdoor opening under her feet.

“Forgot about that,” she says, mostly to herself. She very much does not like the idea of spending an entire school year without Wynonna and Rosita and Xavier and Doc.

God bless Shae Pressman.

“You’ll live, you big baby,” Wynonna chews on her burger, and Nicole likes that she is just as short on table manners as herself. Her father didn’t get to that part.

Better things to do, she supposes. Drugs and all.

“Besides, now you’re their resident Marion Cobretti,” she shrugs, “no worries”.

Nicole laughs. She’d like to be as cool as Marion Cobretti.

“Do ya think he liked gardening?” she asks Wynonna with a smirk.

Wynonna laughs.

***

She drives Nicole home, and Nicole is sure she is determined to speed through every pothole to make Nedley’s burger as inedible as possible.

“What god damned idiot gave ya a damn license?” Nicole all but yells, clutching onto the bag of food and ruining it even more.

Wynonna cackles before whooping and driving over another pothole.

Nicole makes a mental note to never accept a car ride with her again as she stops in front of her house, tires screeching.

“Amen,” Nicole says, sighing heavily as she scurries out of the car.

She remembers something, poking her head inside.

“Waverly misses ya too,” she says with a smile, and Wynonna gives her a quizzical look, “trust me. Go home and do a lil’ givin’”.

As Wynonna drives away, Nicole soaks in the feeling of being _trusted_ by someone, like milk chocolate on just the right temperature, softly wielding under warm fingers.

17.

“How come you never give _me_ any zucchinis?” Rosita protests, feet propped on Nicole’s lap as she sips on her bourbon with lime peels.

Nicole wonders where she got those.

“I ain’t a farmer,” Nicole shrugs as she caresses Shae’s shoulder in slow, lazy circles. The thick scent of coconut shampoo swims inside her head, and she rubs her chin ever so lightly against the top of her girlfriend’s head.

“Do you want to be?” Xavier asks as he shuffles some playing cards, sat on the floor and facing Doc as he loses again and again to impossible, made-up rules.

Nicole shrugs again, careful not to unsettle Shae. She brings her bottle of beer to her lips, already used to the bitter strangeness.

“Never thought about that”.

It’s nice, being a teenager.

Wynonna asked them not to make much noise, wide eyed as she told them her father was home the same way someone would discuss their meeting with Cthulhu.

He was a strange, uncaring man, walking by their living room every so often as he yelled on his phone or jotted something down on a piece of paper, shoulders slumped forward and eyes glassy.

He does not seem to care that they’re all underage and drinking.

Wynonna crosses her feet under herself, sitting on the old reading chair by the corner as if it is a throne.

“Jesus,” she sighs, downing the whiskey like a shot, “we have to do _stuff_ after High School”.

Xavier scoffs.

“By stuff you mean college,” he says, brow furrowed in concentration as he stares at his cards.

Rosita chuckles.

“Wynonna can barely _read,”_ she snorts, “and you think she wants to go to college?”

Xavier smiles a crooked smile.

“A man can dream”.

“Dream all you want, big boy,” Wynonna says, trying to see his cards from where she seats, “you should be glad I made it this far”.

Xavier scoffs, groaning as Doc wins again.

“What are you guys going to do after High School?” Shae asks no one in particular.

Doc is the first to reply, though everyone already knows the answer.

“Cattle farm,” he says simply, because everyone knows his father owns a cattle farm just by the edge of the Triangle and everyone knows the only thing he cares about besides himself and perhaps Rosita is his horses and the cattle and taking over when his dad is no longer able to take care of it.

“Fuck if I know,” Wynonna says, throwing her legs over the armrest as she tries to help Xavier win against Doc.

Rosita snorts at that.

“Biochemistry,” she tells Shae, and Shae smiles a knowing smile.

“Where, though?” she asks.

Rosita shrugs.

“Here, I guess. Not that good but…” she trails off, and everyone in the room knows her mother is a single mother and works as much as she can to afford a life comfortable enough for the two of them and Nicole has heard Rosita say over and over that she didn’t want to be any more of a burden.

(Nicole does not think she is a burden, someone like her could never be a burden, but sometimes the only people we believe is ourselves).

Shae throws a cheeto at Xavier, urging him to answer her question.

He often only speaks when directly spoken to.

“Help out Nedley,” he says simply, a certainty, as all things are for him.

Nicole realizes that she has never thought about what she’d do after school. To be honest, she’d never even thought she’d still be around.

She says nothing, and Shae knows her well enough not to push.

“History,” comes a soft, unmistakable voice.

Nicole turns around so fast she feels her ribs protesting.

Waverly leans against the doorframe of the kitchen, behind an unspoken, undetermined line she seems to have set herself.

“Waves!” Wynonna yells, perhaps a little drunk, and Nicole smiles.

Wynonna hadn’t said it, but she feels like she helped them get where they are.

The man with the slumped shoulders and the unseeing eyes walks past Waverly, not sparing her a look.

“I’m going out with a friend,” he says to the walls.

Nicole feels a clawed hand squeeze at her heart when Waverly follows after him.

“Bye, dad,” she says, reaching for him.

He merely grunts something Nicole cannot make out, throwing Waverly a hard stare before opening their front door.

Ah.

An empty beer can flies across the room, landing at Waverly’s feet.

“Eat shit!” Wynonna yells at the ghost of her father.

Nicole expects Waverly to complain, throw a snarky retort at her, but she picks up the can with a snort.

“He can’t hear you,” she smirks at Wynonna, and Nicole tries not to pay attention to the way Waverly has changed. She tries not to stare at curves or skin as Waverly walks over to her sister, sitting down on the armrest.

How wonder filled is the world.

“History?” Nicole asks, throat dry. She tries to fill her head with coconut shampoo.

“And Ancient Languages,” Waverly adds with what resembles a smile, reaching for Wynonna’s glass.

“Nuh uh, miss quinceñera,” Wynonna shakes her head, keeping the glass out of her grasp.

“You started drinking when you were thirteen. I’m fifteen and I already drink, Wynonna,” she sighs.

“I thought you’d never drink in your life,” Nicole says, wishing she could swallow back her words as a pair of curious eyes stare at her.

Waverly Earp smiles.

“You remember that?” she asks, “changed my mind, I guess,” she shrugs, and Nicole isn’t very smart but she knows a thing or two about peer pressure.

“Ain’t too long ago,” she shrugs.

Why isn’t anyone _speaking_?

Shae saves her, as she always does.

“I thought you liked biology,” she says to Waverly, who’s finally managed to steal Wynonna’s drink.

Wynonna groans.

“She likes _everything_ that’s _boring,”_ she says, and Waverly playfully slaps her arm.

“Ya know much about vegetables?” Nicole asks, because Shae likes the human body and Rosita likes the molecules you cannot see.

Waverly grimaces at the burn of alcohol against her throat, and maybe the immunity to alcohol poisoning is genetic because she finishes the whiskey in no time.

“Not as much as you,” she says.

Oh boy. Nicole’s never known more than anyone in her whole entire life.

She’ll take it, though.

Xavier yells, loud and shrill and guttural, and the entire room goes silent as they stare at the two boys sitting on the Homestead’s floor.

Doc smiles a sly smile.

Xavier claps a clipped and controlled clap before making his announcement.

“I _won,”_ he yells at Wynonna, and everyone starts hootin’ ‘n hollerin’, Nicole included. Waverly looks mildly confused, but goes with it anyways.

She meets Doc’s blue eyes and he smiles, winking, and Nicole knows there is good in the world because the self-proclaimed poker champion let Xavier win.

***

Shae’s parents invite her over for lunch on a Sunday, claiming they haven’t seen her in a while and their younger children are getting antsy with no one to chase after, so she happily obliges, making sure she has enough vegetables to make a salad. It is very impolite to show up empty handed.

They ask her how she’s doing and tell her how sorry they still are for the whole Robert situation and thank her profusely for the salad she brought.

(Shae’s mother says it is the best salad she’s ever had, but Nicole is pretty sure that is not true).

And then Shae sits outside with hot chocolate in her hands as Nicole tries to teach her two brothers how to dribble a ball and shoot it just right, nearly having a heart attack about four times when they toss the basketball Nedley gifted her so far away she thinks it went over to the neighbors’, an old couple who always grunt when they see her, commenting about how she looks like a farmhand and how strange Nedley is.

“Ya ain’t getting’ it nowhere if ya shoot it like that,” she tries to explain to Tim as he grabs the ball with two hands and throws it up into the sky.

Alex laughs and stares at the sky, waiting for the ball to return so he can do the same.

Nicole isn’t sure if she’s a terrible teacher or if they’re terrible students.

She sits down on the sidewalk besides Shae, letting out a breath. Shae’s soft hands instantly find her short hair, scraping her long nails against Nicole’s scalp.

Nicole sighs, deep and content.

“I like ya a lot,” she tells Shae, because she does not like the word love.

“I love you, too,” Shae responds, resting her head against Nicole’s shoulder as they watch the two boys playing some unintelligible game with her basketball. Nicole isn’t sure what it’s goal is.

***

But then Shae’s parents say they’re taking the boys to the movies and ask them if they want to come along. Nicole is about to say yeah, sure, if it ain’t a bother, because she doesn’t like saying no, but Shae tugs her hand and tells them no, they’re fine, they already saw that movie online.

(It’s a lie, the movie hasn’t even made it to the pirate bay yet, but parents know very little about how the internet works, so they just nod and tell them to call if they need anything).

And then they’re alone in a house with white walls and granite floors and chairs that probably cost the same as Nedley’s entire place.

And then matters are made worse, because Shae walks upstairs and closes her bedroom door behind her and Nicole is a lil’ slow, sure, but she can put two and two together and her hands start to sweat.

Shae just sits down on the bed beside her. It dips, as they do, and the forced proximity makes Nicole just that much more nervous.

“You’re all red,” Shae says, giggling.

God damn her to hell.

“Ya makin’ me nervous,” Nicole grumbles, trying to hide her face behind thick flannel.

“I like making you nervous,” Shae replies, because of course she does, she’s a terrible little minx.

Nicole tells her so, and she laughs again.

Nicole always did like how easy it was to make her laugh. She didn’t even have to think too much about it.

“We don’t have to do anything, Nic,” she says, softer. Easier. “You can just talk about your plants if you want”.

Oh how terribly unsexy it is to talk about roots and soil.

“That ain’t too sexy,” Nicole says.

Shae snorts.

“I don’t know,” she smiles that same sly smile she had on her face when she told Nicole she liked her hat and Nicole likes how _comfortable_ it is, “I think you can make it work”.

Nicole feels her throat, dry as sand as she tries to swallow.

Shae kisses her then, because she usually knows exactly what to do, and it is knowable and easy and a territory already charted like those old maps sailors used to find America and steal it’s future.

And Nicole knows her enough to know where the sea monsters are, and she kisses her right under the ear, open mouthed and wet and sloppy, and that’s a monster right there, maybe a sea serpent or a giant squid, because Shae squeezes her bicep and lets out a sigh and Nicole kinda really likes how easy it is to make someone else feel good, so she goes straight for the other sea monsters, the dip of her clavicle and the lobe of her ear and her pulse point.

Things are usually scarier in theory, after all, because Shae is patient and responsive and quite enthusiastic and Nicole isn’t sure when it happened but she’s also naked, laying in front of Nicole and tugging on her shirt and Nicole takes it off because well, why not.

She guesses she does have a little bit of a tendency to sell herself short, after all, because Shae likes her lips on her skin and she writhes and whines and Nicole is emboldened by the sight of someone so beautiful giving themselves to her so easily and she decides there is one last sea monster she’d like to meet.

She knows herself well enough, but she’s still surprised as she touches silk and absurd wetness. She gasps, embarrassingly loud.

Shae looks down, smirking.

God damn her to hell.

“What is it, cowboy?” she asks, and it is nonsensical how _easy_ things are for her.

Nicole feels her face and her chest glowing bright red.

“You’re dripping,” she says before she can stop herself and she wishes the world would swallow her whole.

Shae lets out a satisfied little whine, as if she’s just found gold after mining for years.

“It’s for you”.

To hell with it, Nicole thinks, and she leans down and tastes the sea.

***

Nicole likes having a buzzcut, she thinks strangely as Shae screams beneath her, it is nice not to have any hair standing in her way and she really _really_ likes how Shae keeps trying to pull on her it, nails scraping against her scalp and just the tiniest little tugs before she’s grasping at nothing and writhing and dying over and over again.

***

“You _liar,”_ Shae groans, slapping Nicole’s bare stomach.

Nicole doesn’t lie.

“What?” she asks, fingers still just a little wrinkled. Shae rests against her shoulder, as she so often does, and Nicole likes how her hair feels against naked skin.

“This was _not_ your first time,” Shae says, indignant.

Nicole laughs, disbelieving.

“I ain’t no liar,” she tells her.

Shae groans, and Nicole smiles in satisfaction as she feels the memory of trembling thighs against her own.

The world doesn’t feel any different, except she feels a little closer to Marion Cobretti, a little slicker and a little cooler and maybe just the tiniest bit more powerful.

***

On the fifth of September, Nicole asks Shae to help her choose a present for Waverly.

Shae looks only a little confused.

“Waverly Earp?” she asks, and Nicole only nods. “Since when are you two friends?” she asks, and there’s a little less ease in her voice.

“We ain’t,” she tells Shae, trying to make it easy herself, “but remember that fight last year? With Robert and Wynonna and all that?”

“Of course,” Shae says, and there’s sorrow in her tongue.

“She was real upset that no one remembers her birthday,” Nicole shrugs, “just wanted to make it a lil’ less upsetting, this year”.

Shae smiles and it is easy again.

“You’re too good for this world, Nic”.

Nicole supposes that is sometimes true, really, but she sometimes tells boys they have big ol’ heads and sometimes hit ‘em so bad they have to get stitches, so she’s not too sure if god bases his decisions on the little things or the big picture.

She hopes it’s the latter.

***

Shae does all the choosin’ ‘cause Nicole knows very little about pink and skirts and girls, to be honest, so she holds her purse and waits until she decides on some pretty earrings with little wings on them.

And Nicole is scared she might be a little upset that she is going through so much trouble for another girl Shae knows better than her, even, so she tries to be a little more like Cobretti and she ruffles the hair on her head and tells Shae hey let’s try on some stuff and Shae looks real confused ‘cause they ain’t needin’ to try nothin’ but Nicole grabs a random shirt and holds Shae’s hand and all but drags her to the changing room and they ain’t tryin’ on anything.

***

Things are a little too sweaty and too sticky and too _illicit,_ but Nicole finds she quite likes them that way as Shae holds on ever so tightly against her shirt and bites her own hand as she stifles the sounds she’s making and they can’t take too long but Nicole is persistent and she’s learning, so Shae comes against her hand anyways.

It’s nice, being a teenager.

***

Nicole was never too good with thinking things through, so she gathers as many tomatoes as she can pick and she picks up the nice little earrings and she heads over to the Homestead because it is a Saturday and she can’t bring the presents to school because she really wants to do it on the right day, but then she arrives and there’s music and there are teenagers smoking outside and it really is a bit too much.

She forgets, sometimes, that not everyone has only five friends and not everyone is unused to celebrating birthdays and not everyone is as strange as she is.

And she really does want to give Waverly the god damned presents because she likes being thoughtful and she likes being nice and she likes Waverly’s smile, so she steels herself and she lights one of the rolled up cigarettes she keeps hidden in her fleeced denim jacket’s pocket and she smokes half of it before she enters the house, ignoring the weird looks and the kids throwing up on the porch.

She tries to ask about Waverly but no one pays her any mind, so she just gives up and wanders around, checking the now familiar house for a familiar face, but not even Wynonna is here and she’s getting a little desperate and her heart beats unnaturally fast and her throat is being squeezed by a too bright phantom.

She heads upstairs, a little scared, hands trembling and feet melting under her body.

Wynonna’s room is locked, and she knocks and yells but no one answers and she’s pretty sure Wynonna really isn’t home and _Christ_ what is she even doing here.

She looks down and tries to focus, guessing blindly before she opens the door to Waverly’s room and then her hands are empty and there are soft little thuds as the tomatoes roll away in the direction of a shirtless Waverly Earp as a boy Nicole thinks is called Perry tugs and bites at breasts Nicole is so very grateful she didn’t see and _Christ_ what is she doing _here._

And Waverly looks back because god knows no mercy and she stares Nicole right in the eye as she presses the boy’s head even further against her skin, and she stares hard with glazed, drunk eyes, and it is sharp and frigid, daring Nicole to speak or maybe telling her to leave, Nicole isn’t really in the right mind for mind games.

Nicole could’ve spent an entire hour, three thousand and six hundred seconds staring at grass and unknown planets which seem not to be made by life and blooming but by fiery deserts and oppressing atmosphere, and Waverly stares back at her with malice and intent and the dumb _fuckin’_ boy doesn’t even know what’s going on as he keeps biting and he keeps tugging and maybe Waverly is not as good as Nicole thinks she is because she lets out a moan.

So she closes the door slowly, quietly, and she leaves the gifts where they fell and she walks out of the strange house, lighting a cigarette with still trembling hands as her crooked little ribs burn under her skin and the heavy breathing comes right back, made worse and made hotter when there is no hair to protect Nicole’s skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made a twitter for fanfic stuff because I felt kind bad having people dealing with me rambling in portuguese, so if ya like head on down to @harakiridaddy for a truly awful time


	9. Chapter 9

17.

Being a teenager is lousy and Nicole knows nothing about love or life and everything is _terrible._

***

She lays on her bed, too agitated so sleep, unable to focus on a single thought as her brain plays catch with her consciousness. She thinks of Shae and she thinks of Wynonna and she thinks hard about Waverly Earp, but she never reaches any answer, she’s only given clues.

She decides she does not need more than 5 friends and that her last year in school will come and it will go and she will live through it, and Waverly Earp can go to hell because she hasn’t come this far to let a strange little girl who does not know what she wants make her feel the way she is feeling as she turns around and around, kicking off blankets and sighing as the sun starts to shine through her window.

Nicole does not know how someone can smile sweetly and then give her that terrible icy look, and she does not know what she’s done to deserve it.

As she gives up on sleep and gets up to make her and Nedley breakfast, she knows that the worst part of it all is that she does not know _why_ she cares as much as she does.

Maybe she needs to stop giving so much of herself to people who will just chew it right up and spit it out.

***

“Christ, ya look awful,” Nedley very kindly tells her, though he doesn’t look too good himself.

Nicole tells him so.

“Well, I ain’t a kid no more, I can look as lousy as I want,” he retorts, digging into scrambled eggs and bacon.

“I ain’t no kid, neither,” Nicole frowns, sipping on her black coffee.

He snorts.

“Sure, chicken,” he grins, and she smiles despite herself. “What’s wrong? Waverly didn’t like ya gift?”

Sometimes she hates how much attention Nedley gives her.

(she does not hate it at all, basking on it as if she’s chlorophyll and he is the sun).

“She was havin’ a party,” she grumbles, sticking her fork on a piece of bacon with a little too much force.

Nedley hums, urging her on.

“Was real rude is what she was,” she tells Nedley, furrowing her brow.

He clicks his tongue.

“A real jumble, ‘em Earps,” he sympathizes. Maybe a little too much.

“Ya always act like ya know ‘em,” she tells him, “takin’ Waverly to games ‘n all”.

Nedley shrugs.

“I ain’t like no kids bein’ left on their lonesome,” he says, pointing his fork at her.

She fakes a frown.

“’N here I was thinkin’ I was special,” she sighs, shaking her head.

He laughs, warm and inviting.

“A lil’ bit,” he winks.

***

Nicole is changing into her gym clothes as Wynonna rambles on about how their coach secretly intends to kill them all with how much she asks of them when the door to the locker room opens and then closes.

She doesn’t think much of it, they’re not the only ones in the team after all, so she sits down to put on her sneakers and barely notices as a third figure stands stock still on the end of her bench, casting a notably stark shadow on the floor.

“Waves,” Wynonna greets, puzzled.

Of course, Nicole thinks with shocking bitterness.

She shoves her foot inside the shoe and stands upright.

“See ya in court,” she tells Wynonna.

“Actually,” Waverly stops her, because of course she does. “It’s you I wanted to talk to”.

God damn her to hell and back.

“Well this is… weird,” Wynonna says with not an ounce of grace, the atmosphere more pins and needles and winter than anything else.

“Can you…” Waverly trails off, and Nicole stares at Wynonna, eyes wide and pleading her to stay.

Wynonna Earp is a god-damned coward and she walks right out of the locker room with an apologetic glance thrown her way.

“What do ya want?” Nicole asks, voice so shrill and sour it tastes foreign.

Waverly just stares at her, and Nicole feels heat in the back of her neck.

“You know my birthday,” she says.

It is not a question.

“I’ll try my darnest to forget it,” Nicole replies.

Waverly clenches her jaw, blinking with deliberate slowness.

“I’m not…” she starts, “I don’t know why I did that”.

Nicole scoffs.

“Miss Waverly,” she starts, willing herself to avoid scarlet velvet, “ya did _that_ ‘cause ya don’t like me”.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“That’s not true”.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“I ain’t fond of liars”.

There’s silence, then, as thick and bitter as strong coffee.

Waverly does not deny the accusation.

“I envy you,” she says instead, because she is good at deflecting. Of course she is.

Nicole only stares, fingertips tingling.

“Sometimes,” Waverly adds, an afterthought. “How much you don’t care”.

Nicole scoffs.

“I care alright, miss Waverly,” she says stepping just the tiniest bit closer, “but I care about the right things”.

It’s Waverly’s turn to scoff, and Nicole doesn’t like the way her face scrunches up and she doesn’t like the sound that leaves her mouth.

“And what are those, uh?” she asks, voice inching higher, “tomatoes? _Shae_?”

Nicole steps closer still.

“Don’t ya open ya mouth to talk about her,” Nicole warns, “she ain’t ever been nothin’ but nice to ya”.

“And what has _Perry_ done to _you?_ ” she asks.

There it is.

Nicole doesn’t know, and that’s the problem, really, because she decided she does not like Waverly Earp and she doesn’t care who kisses her and she likes Shae, she really does, so she blanks, staring at Waverly as she looks on, triumphant.

“It was _unpolite,”_ Nicole tells her finally, voice low.

Waverly laughs, and it is not sweet.

“You barged into _my room!”_ she says, voice loud and clear and as obnoxious as the fluorescent lights above them.

“I was _tryin’_ to give ya a god damned _gift_!”

Waverly’s face changes, then, it goes a little red and a little shocked and the tiniest hint of frustrated.

“ _Why?!”_ she almost yells at Nicole, arms raised and eyes wide. “Why do you _care?”_

And Nicole is sad, really.

Waverly isn’t used to being cared for, she knows.

“’Cause ya my best friend’s lil’ sister,” she shrugs, “’cause I thought you were… good. ‘Cause I like bein’ nice,” and she knows she’s not being honest and she hasn’t answered the question, not even to herself.

Waverly sighs, then, defeated, even though Nicole didn’t know they were fighting any battles.

“Don’t worry,” Nicole says, “I’m done with that”.

And she walks away, because sometimes you have to walk away and sometimes you have to stop giving.

***

“Dude,” Wynonna starts, dragging herself through the school’s hallways beside Shae and Nicole. Nicole throws her arm over Shae’s shoulder.

She slept soundly this past few nights.

“Yeah?” she asks her.

“Did you kick Waverly’s ass or something?” Wynonna asks, only half joking, “she’s acting really weird”.

Shae perks up, a little too interested.

“Of course not,” Nicole sighs.

“What did she even want with you?” Wynonna presses.

Nicole considers.

“To thank me,” she answers, “for her birthday present”.

The lie burns the back of her throat just as much as Wynonna’s cheap bourbon.

***

“Nic?” Shae asks one day, head on Nicole’s shoulder as they watch Sleepaway Camp with the lights on.

(Shae doesn’t like horror movies very much).

“Yeah?” she asks, kissing the top of her girlfriend’s head.

“What’s going on between you and Waverly?” Shae asks, and the question is innocent enough, there’s nothing tucked away on the corners of it.

Nicole still feels her stomach contort just the slightest bit.

“Nothin’,” she says, and she’s not sure if it’s a lie.

Shae hums.

“She’s weird with me,” Nicole adds, because Shae deserves better, “ain’t like me and then like me and ain’t like me no more”.

Shae looks up, interested.

“Told ‘er I was tired of it”.

Shae nods.

“She’s strange,” she agrees, “she’s all skittish, isn’t she? You think you know her but you don’t, not really”.

Nicole hums in agreement.

“Like ‘em new kittens” she says.

***

Shae invites Nicole to spend Christmas with her, but she’d rather die than leave Nedley alone and he’d probably die, too, so she says she will just go by to say hi and give her a kiss and then go home ‘cause Nedley doesn’t know how to cook a turkey.

There’s so much _food_ Nicole feels her eyes go a little watery.

She buys Shae’s brothers a basketball and they get a little too excited with it, so she has to tell them not to play inside ‘cause they’re gonna break everythin’ since rich people love frail furniture. Shae looks on with so much adoration Nicole starts to feel a little too nervous and not at all like Cobretti.

She runs her hand through her hair, pushing back some of it as it falls in front of her eyes. It’s growing, slow but inexorable, like nothing else in her life.

She’s pretty sure she bought the stupidest Christmas present in the history of baby Jesus.

Nicole gives Shae the tiny package anyways, watching with nervousness as Shae opens it to reveal a necklace with a small pendant.

It’s a cowboy hat.

Maybe it wasn’t all that bad, because Shae smiles real wide and hugs her tightly and gives her a kiss entirely inappropriate for such Christian festivities.

She’s a little alleviated when Nedley comes back to pick her up.

***

It’s nice, having a family, even when you’re a teenager and everything is terrible, because Nedley gifts her with a little more of his land so she can plant more things and he goes on and on about how she shone a light in his life and perhaps it’s all the wine he’s had but his eyes get really wet and Nicole has to tell him to shut up and go to bed before she starts cryin’ herself.

***

When Nicole is checking on her squashes and telling Timothy the Dill to stop invading Klaus’ space, there is enough soil for everyone, she feels a little strange.

She waters her garden like she always does, and she smiles and tells them they’ll have to be extra strong ‘cause winter’s here, and she stares at her tomato plants with a little sting on her heart, a soft little hand squeezing on it.

It has no flowers and no tomatoes, it is winter after all, and Nicole stares hard, looking for something she doesn’t know quite yet.

She feels tired, not the tiredness she feels after basketball practice, her legs do not ache and her heart does not hammer against her ribs. If anything, it feels a little too slow, like it is not sure of it’s own rhythm.

She makes sure there is no ice or snow near her garden before going back inside, pulling her thick jacket closer around her body.

But it doesn’t work, the cold is not there because of the snow and the lack of sun, it radiates from the marrow of her bones, and she feels wrong, bored and tired and just _wrong,_ so she decides to go to sleep instead of thinking about it.

***

Because that’s just kinda how he is, Doc asks them to come over to his father’s farm to help him shovel the snow from around the stables. He tells them he has bourbon and tobacco, and teenagers are very easy to convince, so they all sit and watch Nicole and Doc grumble and sweat even as their breath condenses whenever they huff with the effort.

“You’re missing a spot, Henry!” Wynonna yells, sat on a pile of wooden crates and sipping on the mysterious bourbon with no label and suspicious taste.

“If you were so kind as to actually _help,_ ” he groans, taking off his hat and wiping his brow.

“It’s called emotional support,” Rosita says, and Nicole thinks she just walks around with god damned lime slices in her pockets.

“I ain’t feelin’ no support,” Nicole grumbles, kicking down the shovel and cursing as it barely moves. “Xavier, come help!”

He laughs, shoving his gloved hands inside his jacket pockets.

“I don’t like pointless labor”.

“All labor is pointless, Xavier,” Wynonna tells him, swinging the dusty bottle.

“ _You’re_ pointless,” Nicole yells at her.

“Is Wynonna reading Karl Marx now?” Rosita asks, laughing.

Nicole kicks the shovel again, less directed and more forceful.

It doesn’t move, of course.

“Doc, I ain’t kickin’ this all day,” she tells him, feeling sweat gathering under her sheriff’s hat.

He sighs, hands on his hips.

“My _horses,_ ” he whines, “they don’t like snow”.

“Neither do _I,_ Holliday,” Nicole reminds him.

He slumps down on the crates, reaching for Wynonna’s bottle and setting down his hat. Nicole follows, watching him drink before taking it herself.

“Is that what you’re gonna do after we graduate?” Wynonna asks with a scoff, “shovel snow?”

Doc narrows his eyes at her.

“What are _you_ going to do?” he asks her pointedly.

“God, I don’t know!” Wynonna rolls her eyes, “who _cares_ ”.

“Everyone but you,” Rosita tells her.

“No one ever asks the twin tower what she’s gonna do after she graduates,” Wynonna accuses, pointing her finger at Nicole as she lights a cigarette rolled by Doc.

“I ain’t graduatin’ with ya,” she says, blowing smoke at Wynonna’s face.

She slaps Nicole’s shoulder.

“She’ll marry Shae and have pretty little babies,” Rosita says with faux sweetness, blinking her eyes at her.

Nicole feels her ears getting warmer.

“Ain’t marryin’ no one,” she retorts without thinking.

And then she’s glad Shae isn’t here.

“I mean,” she frowns, “I don’t know”.

Xavier gives her a puzzled look.

“You guys alright?” he asks.

“Yeah!” Nicole replies a little too fast, “I just… forever is a long time”.

Wynonna snorts.

“Forever,” she mocks.

“Ya know what I meant, Wynonna”.

Rosita takes a drag from Doc’s cigarette before weighting in her opinion on Nicole’s suddenly very public love life.

“You got a point, though,” she says, “we’re still in High School”.

Doc nods beside her, and Nicole likes that he doesn’t question what Rosita said. There’s a certain straightforwardness to the way he sees things, practical and effortless and present.

Everything is as it is.

She wishes her brain understood that, but it still keeps her awake at night and she still feels like vomiting whenever she’s nervous.

“You should become an MMA fighter,” Wynonna suggests, though Nicole isn’t sure if she’s being serious.

Rosita snorts.

“Got the body for it,” she says, and Nicole wasn’t even aware people looked at her body all that much.

That was kinda Shae’s job.

Her face goes red and Rosita laughs and things are easy when you’re in High School and you’ve got illicit alcohol and can smoke cigarettes and pretend you’re Danny Zuko.

***

When they graduate, Nicole is surprisingly happy for them, swallowing down the fear of an entire year with only Shae by her side for the sake of the people she’s learned to love.

She attends the ceremony, of course, holding Shae’s hand, laughing as they watch Wynonna put up her middle finger after receiving her diploma and Lucado almost having a stroke.

Waverly Earp is there, of course, and Nicole tries not to look but she does anyways, and she sees the pride in her eyes and the fond little laugh she lets out at Wynonna’s antics and her clapping for Rosita and Doc and Xavier and she’s reminded that Waverly is just a lost kitten, really.

***

Ward Earp is nowhere to be seen, and Nicole is glad.

She doesn’t think Wynonna would want him there.

***

She has to be civil when Wynonna throws her arms around Waverly and says they’re heading home to have a few drinks and order some pizza to celebrate, since they’re not nearly liked enough around school to be invited to any parties, and they’d be lame anyways.

(her words, of course).

So she almost drags Shae with her to Doc’s car, making up an excuse about Wynonna’s driving to avoid being stuck inside a metal death machine for 35 minutes with Waverly Earp.

***

Waverly is weirdly comfortable with Wynonna’s friends, nursing her own drink and participating in conversations and laughing along, and Nicole feels herself being squeezed between being _too_ nice and remembering too much and giving her too much attention and being too cold or too aloof or treating Waverly the way she treats her.

Balance is most probably the most important and the most difficult thing in life, really.

It truly is terrible, being a teenager.

***

At some point, when she’s a little light headed and her feet are already a little numb, she feels Shae pulling her by the hand, and she dazedly follows the girl upstairs, too preoccupied with the ache in her ribs and the way her hands are tingling to process Shae’s intentions.

Until Shae shoves her inside the bathroom, that is.

“Hey,” she greets simply, an edge to her voice Nicole doesn’t really understand.

Nicole knows she is not drunk, and she knows she is not quite sober.

“Howdy,” she returns, because Shae likes it when she says that.

Nicole feels cold tiles pressing against her back, and the contact drags her up and out of murky waters.

“You’re a little airy today,” Shae comments, hands playing with the hairs on the back of Nicole’s neck.

“Sorry,” Nicole replies, hands settling on Shae’s hips.

Shae looks into her eyes, and the caramel is a little darker, a little harder. Nicole thinks it wouldn’t mold itself under her fingers.

She doesn’t like the uncertainty of her stare, so she leans down and presses her lips against Shae’s and she pushes Shae against the bathroom counter, almost sighing in relief as Shae melts under her touch, body molding under her fingers.

Not all is lost.

She knows the sea monsters well by now, wasting no time before pressing wet kisses right under her ear and allowing her hand to hover for just a second over Shae’s waistband before she’s undoing the button of her jeans and pulling down the zipper with a strained little sound.

She’s still amazed, even now, at how easy it is, at how wet Shae is against her fingertips, at how her thighs part, inviting, and she sits down on the counter, ignoring the press of the cold sink on her back.

It is just _too_ easy to make tight little circles around her until she’s gasping and it is _too_ easy to suck on her pulse point until there are orchids blooming on dark skin.

Nicole is almost clinical, really, and she tries not to dwell on how mechanical it feels to run her tongue against salty skin and how she already knows the sound it will elicit and she tries not to dwell on how she knows exactly how it will feel as she presses two fingers inside the woman sat in front of her, her hands pulling and tugging on red hair.

She knows the rhythm and she knows the way to press into her just right and her ribs feel like they’re holding onto nothing because it is empty, in a way, when Shae comes with Nicole’s name on her lips and it is not a surprise and not a delight, but almost a relief, and Nicole sucks on her fingers almost absentmindedly and then she kisses Shae because she knows Shae likes to be kissed after sex and then she washes her hands and they head downstairs again.

***

What is not easy is to endure is Waverly staring at her, eyebrows just the tiniest bit furrowed as she stares at the obvious bruises on Shae’s throat.

There are a few jokes, of course, tiny little jabs and comments about how long it took them to pee and wait, Shae, what happened to your neck, but it’s all gone a little old by now and Nicole doesn’t feel like Danny Zuko and she doesn’t feel like Cobretti when her eyes meet knowing smirks, but she holds Shae’s hand and she smiles and she kisses her on the cheek.

***

Shae is the first to leave, she has the most normal parents by far and they’re the only ones who actually care about their kid’s whereabouts enough to set curfews.

(but it is not about caring, really, it is about comfort and control, because Nicole knows Nedley would give his life for her without a second of hesitation, but he trusts her, and maybe it’s a cop thing but he knows teenagers well enough to understand that trying to control the ungovernable is like holding water in the palm of your hand).

Nicole is torn between loss and relief, so she downs her glass of bourbon and focuses on the burn instead.

***

She heads outside for a cigarette.

Her hands are shaking and her stomach feels heavy, too big for her body, somehow, and smoking always helps her focus and relax, if only a little bit.

The front door opens.

“You forgot your jacket,” says Waverly Earp, and for once her voice hides no secrets.

“Oh,” Nicole breathes out, taking a long drag before turning around and reaching for it, “thanks”.

Waverly shrugs. Her eyes are a little too glassy.

“You okay?” she asks, eyes set on the slight trembling of Nicole’s cigarette.

Nicole only shrugs, too drunk and too tired to lie. She leans against the wooden railing of the porch.

“Never really got why people liked to smoke,” Waverly says, and Nicole realizes with sourness that she is trying to make easy conversation. As if anything involving her could be easy.

Waverly Earp has such terrible timing.

“It calms me down,” she answers, taking another drag, “and it’s tobacco. Better than that industrial stuff”.

Waverly quirks up her lips at that.

“Can I try it?” she asks, because of course she wants to press her lips against Nicole’s cigarette.

God damn her to hell.

Nicole extends her arm, willing her hands not to shake too much, and offers it to Waverly. She stumbles a little as she leans forward, giggling a drunk little giggle before her lips are on the cigarette. Nicole still holds it, and the warmth radiating from Waverly Earp makes her bones feel like coal.

Waverly coughs and coughs and coughs until there are tears in her eyes.

Nicole laughs.

“God,” Waverly groans, “that’s strong”.

Nicole shrugs, bringing it back to her own lips and trying to ignore how it’s still a little wet and still a little warm and how it’s delightful and wrong and _something._

She’s a little drunker than what she thought, she realizes, because she opens her mouth again.

“Wanna know why I smoke, for real?” she asks Waverly, stage whispering over the howling of the wind.

Waverly nods eagerly, eyes wide.

“Sometimes,” Nicole starts, drawling her voice, hushing Waverly as if she’s telling her the secret to life itself, “I start to get real curious about why my dad liked meth so much. Why he liked it more than he liked me”.

Waverly deflates a little, a look of surprised sorrow on her face.

Nicole has never told that to anyone before, but Waverly Earp has something behind her eyes, something hiding and creeping. Sometimes Nicole thinks she can see it’s shadow out of the corner of her eye, but when she focuses on it, it disappears.

“And when I get real curious,” she continues, “I smoke so I can forget about it. Lesser evils”.

Waverly stares at her, and she doesn’t look that drunk anymore.

Nicole takes a last drag before throwing it on the snow. She shakes her head.

“Don’t envy me, miss Waverly,” she says, somber, “sometimes I care a little too much”.

Waverly is sober and freezing and unmoving as Nicole walks by her and returns to the warmth of her friends.

Would you look at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to tell you guys how thankful I am for all the comments and the support I'm receiving for this little guy. I rarely reply because I'm writing, but I read each and everyone of them and they mean a lot to me, even if you are yelling at me or saying you hate it, so thank you.


	10. Chapter 10

18.

Time passes, as it does.

Or rather, it continues.

Nicole likes how her hair grows, she feels less exposed and less obvious. She’s tall, maybe a little too tall, and standing out was never really her thing. So she lets it, enjoying how she looks like a different person every month.

***

It’s not very easy, figuring out what you want. Especially when you’re eighteen years old and the only thing you really like doing is spending time with your vegetable garden.

Nedley tells Nicole she shouldn’t worry too much, she has time to figure things out, she doesn’t need to know what she wants right after High School, but it’s annoying, in a way, never knowing what you want. It eats you up from the inside, a mess of tiny little bugs chewing at your bones and your muscles.

So it’s all a little dull, going to school and paying attention to class and hearing Shae’s friends talking about medicine and Law School and being rich. She feels like she’s fourteen again, every step an uncertainty, and being alone feels worse after she’s gotten used to laughter and cheap alcohol.

She still has her friends, of course, and she’s glad none of them decided to leave Purgatory, but it isn’t the same, she rarely sees them and they are all making new, more interesting friends, and she feels like she was left behind, stuck between their newness and Shae’s constancy.

She thinks she knows what being a teenager really is, after all. It is being underwater, too scared to allow the currents to take you to uncertain darkness, not strong enough to swim against them, and there are sharks, of course, and strange ferry boats and fishes and coral reefs, but they do not care and they cannot help, and it is hard, figuring out if you want to relax and let it go or if you want to fight until your muscles burn.

***

She pays no attention as a girl she’s seen before but doesn’t know goes on and on about how her parents weren’t sure if they’d travel to Europe or to Florida, chewing on her sandwich mechanically as Shae laughs by her side.

They’re changing, the both of them, and Nicole fears change.

“Are you alright?” Shae asks suddenly, hand resting over Nicole’s, and her voice is painfully attentive.

Nicole is startled by the sound.

“Uh, yeah,” she answers, brows furrowed.

Shae stares at her.

“You sure?” she insists.

Nicole sighs, and then she smiles.

“Yeah, missus,” she tries, and Shae smiles, “I just ain’t know nothin’ about Europe”.

It isn’t a lie, not really.

Shae smiles, shaking her head and returning to the conversation.

Nicole finds herself staring at the one Earp still in High School, and Waverly stares right back.

***

She buys seeds, because she is tired and unsure and there is certainty in the way plants grow.

It makes her feel useful.

Nedley helped her remove another patch of the lawn during the weekend, which mostly means he sat and held her shovel as he watched her do the hard work, but she can’t blame him. His belly is gettin’ a lil bigger.

She plows the soil with calculated slowness, measuring the space for each of her new friends, analyzing the best layout, trying to predict where the sun will shine the most.

It is refreshing to do something she _understands._ There is honesty in her work.

***

Nicole knocks on the Homestead door, staggering backwards when Ward Earp opens the door.

He stares at her, as if trying to remember if he’s seen her before.

“Sir,” she greets, “is Wynonna home?”

He grunts, letting her in.

“Thanks”.

He doesn’t say anything else, so she heads upstairs, knocking on Wynonna’s door. Wynonna groans, and it is as much an invitation as she’d expect.

“Mornin’,” Nicole greets, spotting Wynonna still wrapped in a mountain of blankets on her bed.

Waverly Earp sits on Wynonna’s old wooden chair, a book in her hand.

“Miss Waverly,” Nicole greets, overly proud of her own calmness.

“Hey,” she says simply, a hint of a smile on her lips.

“What do you want?” Wynonna groans, voice muffled by her blankets.

Nicole rolls her eyes, dropping a bag of vegetables on Wynonna’s feet and sitting down on the old carpet.

“Ya said we were playin’ basketball today,” she says with a huff.

“The sun isn’t even _out,_ ” Wynonna complains, mane of dark hair emerging from the blankets as she stares at Nicole with sleepy eyes.

“It’s ten in the mornin’,” Nicole deadpans, setting her basketball on her lap.

“I’ve been trying to get her out of bed for an hour,” Waverly says, voice bright and light.

It sounds nice, Nicole thinks.

“Graduatin’ made ya even more lazy,” Nicole tells Wynonna, and she tries not to stare as Waverly stands from her chair and leans over the end of Wynonna’s bed, peeking inside the bag.

Waverly Earp smiles.

“How do you always have so much _stuff?”_ she asks, amazed as she picks up a small head of lettuce.

Nicole shrugs.

“Nedley gives me a lot of space on the lawn,” she says, heart reaching for her throat as she watches Waverly appreciate her hard work.

There’s so much wonder in her eyes, reverence as she examines the tomatoes and cucumbers and the small little handfuls of fresh herbs.

Nicole feels like a magician, pulling a rabbit out of her top hat.

Waverly sees magic where Nicole sees dust.

***

When Wynonna finally decides to get out of bed, they argue about how late it is before heading into town for lunch before going over to the park.

Unfortunately for Nicole Haught, Waverly asks if she can come along, there isn’t any food in the house.

She’s glad she’s alone in the backseat, watching Waverly and Wynonna bicker over the radio station, hands clutching on her seatbelt every time Wynonna looks away from the road to change stations.

***

“Seniors have to pay today,” Wynonna tells Nicole as they order their subs to go.

“That ain’t a thing, Earp,” Nicole tells her.

“Sure it is,” Wynonna confirms, “national holiday”.

Waverly tells Wynonna to shut the hell up, but Nicole is nothing if not unbearably polite, so she pays for all the food anyways.

She isn’t even sure if Ward Earp has a job.

***

“See, Wynonna?” Waverly complains as Nicole carries the bags of food back to the car, “look at what you made her do”.

“Just saved seven bucks, baby,” Wynonna says with a wink.

Waverly pushes her, almost spilling the tray of soda she’s carrying.

“Dontcha spill my money, Miss Waverly,” Nicole warns, trying to open the car door with her arms full.

Waverly opens the door for her with a smile that reminds Nicole of fresh strawberry jam.

God damn her to hell.

“Ladies shouldn’t open doors,” she tells Waverly, who giggles sweetly and openly.

“I’m not a lady,” she retorts, sitting on the front seat, “not a _Miss,_ either”.

“Sure ya are,” Nicole answers simply.

She likes Waverly when she’s like this, a little less worried and a little less angry and a little more like the person Nicole knows she is.

“How come you never call _me_ Miss Wynonna, Yao Ming?” Wynonna argues, starting the car.

“’Cause ya ain’t a lady,” Nicole reminds her, “ya barely even a _person_ ”.

Wynonna sighs, heavy and affected.

“You know what, Nedley junior?” she starts, “I liked you better when you had no friends”.

Nicole laughs as Waverly slaps Wynonna upside the head.

***

It’s warm that day, the sun shines brightly and the air is sticky, heavy with humidity, and Nicole is sure her skin will be an uncomfortable shade of red the next morning.

But it is a good day, because she’s missed Wynonna’s mockery as they played, she’s missed knowing she can push and shove her and she will just push back, twice as hard, and because Wynonna is already gettin’ a lil’ rusty, so she wins the game.

“Christ, did you get _taller?_ ” Wynonna asks, hands over her knees as she takes a deep breath.

Nicole laughs, sweat running down her back slowly, frustrating as it drags itself over her skin.

She pulls up the hem of her jersey, wiping her brow.

When she sets it back in it’s place, she catches Waverly staring at the stretch of skin she’s just revealed. Sometimes, Nicole thinks about how nice it would be not to exist, at least not physically. To not have to care about people staring at her, about squeezing herself through crowds, about queasy stomachs and vomit and shaking hands.

This is not one of those times.

“Ya gettin’ old, Earp,” she tells Wynonna as she dribbles the ball around her slumped form.

Wynonna scoffs.

“Give me ten minutes,” she says, gasping, “then I’ll kick your ass”.

Nicole laughs, but she complies, sitting down on the dirty concrete of the small court as Wynonna settles beside her sister, sipping on her sinfully large cup of coke.

“Look at your fucking legs,” Wynonna points, face red and glimmering with sweat, “they’re the size of my entire _body”._

Waverly follows her finger and her eyes drag over pale skin for a little longer than what would be strictly necessary.

Nicole is not too good with relationships: she has a hard time figuring out what people want, how to fit into what is normal and what is strange. She often thinks she wasn’t meant for planet Earth, or maybe she should’ve been born a few centuries earlier, so she’d just care for a few chickens and a few plants and be at peace with herself.

But she’s getting better, she thinks, and there are certain feelings she’s learned to recognize well.

She thinks she knows what desire looks like, and it does not stray too far from eyes filled with grass, still wet with dew, taking in alabaster skin.

Would you look at that.

***

“Nic?”

Nicole watches as Seth Brundle tells Veronica Quaife he has evolved into something greater than humanity.

“Nicole,” Shae repeats.

Nicole looks away from the television and into brown eyes.

“Yeah?”

Shae looks at her for what feels like hours.

“What are you doing after we graduate?” she asks finally.

Something in Nicole’s bones tells her this is not what she intended to ask.

“I don’t know,” Nicole answers with a shrug.

Shae rolls her eyes, and it’s a little ugly, the sigh she lets out.

“Our senior year won’t last forever,” she tells Nicole, and Nicole does not like how it makes her feel stupid.

“I know, Shae,” she says, voice calm, “but I ain’t sure”.

“Do you even… Don’t you have any options?” Shae insists.

Nicole sighs, tired.

“I said I don’t know, Shae,” she repeats, “just let it go”.

“Let it go?” Shae asks, voice shrill and cutting.

Nicole says nothing in return, lips pursed.

“You know, I don’t even know if I’m staying in Purgatory,” Shae tells her, and Nicole feels small, sharp needles stabbing her spine. “UBC has a great med program. And you don’t even know what you _want_ ”.

Nicole is not sure how to explain to someone like Shae that there are people who have more pressing problems than what part of the world they want to go next.

“Why can’t I have my own time?” she asks, voice low.

Shae stares at her, confused.

“All we…” Nicole sighs, “it’s always ya wants and ya time and ya everythin’,” she tells her, “’n I ask ya one thing and that’s let me figure it out on my own clock and ya can’t let me have it”.

Shae looks too offended, too angered by Nicole’s words, and it is not what she expected.

She expected an apology, but those are always so hard to get.

“I can’t just wait around until you make a decision,” Shae says, and it’s pointed and accusatory.

Nicole scoffs.

“’Cause I’m slow, is it?” she asks, and there is the smallest little tremble in her hands.

“That’s now what I said”.

“It’s whatcha mean”.

Shae takes in a deep breath.

“I ain’t obliged to follow ya every decision, Shae,” Nicole tells her, because it is true.

She feels like she’s being pulled into a current which does not sing to her, and there is tugging at her feet.

Shae’s eyes are not caramel.

“Is that what this is? I’m _forcing_ you?”

“Ya ain’t forcin’ me,” Nicole explains, restrained, “but ya ain’t givin’ me no choice”.

Shae looks at her with something Nicole has never seen before.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Shae asks, and it’s quiet and sad and it breaks Nicole’s hollow little bones.

Nicole closes her eyes tightly.

“That ain’t what this is about, Shae,” she says, and it is not a lie, “I’m just… tired”.

Shae sighs with defeat, and there are battles too long and too complex for us to understand before they’re over.

“I’m tired of not knowin’ ‘n I’m tired of bein’ made to choose,” Nicole tells her, and she holds her hand because it is all she can do, “ya have to give me time”.

And Shae does, in a way, because the thing about time is that it continues, relentless and slow like growing red hair.

***

They still see each other, and they still kiss and hold hands, but Nicole feels less compelled to have lunch with the girls she does not like and Shae does not invite her to her house, and things are strange when you find yourself deep into the ocean’s Twilight Zone, remnants of light all but a memory.

***

Nicole extends her legs on the stair’s steps, her thick jeans almost unbearable with the warm sun, which seems to embed itself in the very walls of the school building, radiating endless discomfort. 

She groans as she feels sweat gathering on the back of her neck, throwing what’s left of her lunch on a garbage can before heading to the bathroom.

The sink groans with effort, and the water splashing against Nicole’s palms is cold and heavenly. She leans down, throwing it over her hair and washing her face with joyous relief. The thought of her tomatoes basking under the warm sun is the only thing that makes summer bearable.

She stands upright, and Waverly Earp is standing right by the entrance, uncertainty in her eyes.

The world is little more than a mess of possibilities repeating and changing and mocking themselves.

“Hey,” she greets with a small wave.

Nicole smiles despite herself.

“Hey there, Miss Waverly”.

Her hair drips with holy cold water.

Waverly points at it.

“I liked it when you shaved your head,” she says, weight travelling from foot to foot, and Nicole likes that she’s a little uncomfortable. “But I like it better like this. Looks… redder”.

Nicole chuckles as Waverly’s cheeks go red.

The irony.

“Was bored of it,” Nicole explains with a shrug.

Waverly nods slowly.

“Did ya… want somethin’?” Nicole asks, careful with her tone.

Kittens are so very skittish sometimes.

Waverly blushes.

“My birthday,” she says simply.

Nicole stares at her.

“I’ll have a… party. Again,” she says, and she has the decency to look embarrassed. “You should come”.

Nicole sometimes thinks she might drop dead before Nedley does.

“Me?” she asks, pointing at her own chest.

Waverly giggles a sweet little giggle.

“I invited Rosita, Doc and Dolls, too,” she says, and it is reassuring, “so you won’t get too… lost”.

It is nice, the consideration. She likes that Waverly Earp thought about her.

Waverly clears her throat.

“You should bring your girlfriend, too,” she says, and there’s a strange ghost in the room, a shadow out of the corner of Nicole’s eye.

“Eighth of September?” Nicole asks, though they both know she knows the answer.

Waverly nods with a smile.

“At the Homestead”.

And then she’s gone.

***

“Waverly invited us to her birthday,” Nicole says casually as she accompanies Shae to her classroom.

Shae raises her eyebrows.

“Did she?”

Nicole nods, brows furrowed.

“Us?” Shae asks, and it is sour.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Me ‘n you, Shae”.

Shae gives her a noncommittal shrug before entering her classroom.

***

“Timothy, god damn ya,” Nicole groans, carefully cutting down the enormous Dill growing over her pumpkins. “Ya ain’t need more space,” she chastises, picking up the stems and putting them inside her basket.

She fixes her hat before picking up fertilizer.

“Ya hungry, kid?” comes Nedley’s voice from the front porch.

Nicole grins, squinting her eyes as she looks over at him.

“Always, sir!” she replies, and he laughs before going back inside, telling her to come inside in twenty minutes.

She distributes the fertilizer evenly, deliberate as she determines what each of her plants need.

The air tingles her nose with fresh peppers, and there’s a purity in the smell of green and earth, and Nicole likes feeling like a creator. She brings her basket with her, sweat gathering beneath her hat as she puts it on the kitchen counter.

“Wash ya hands,” Nedley grumbles as he stirs tomato sauce, peeking inside her basket to see if there’s anything he can use.

“I know, sir,” Nicole assures him, ascending the steps two at a time.

She looks different, somehow. The bright light of the bathroom shines against her skin, reddened with the heat, and she thinks she looks a lil’ stupid with this much red goin’ on.

She likes her hair like this, though; it brushes against her jaw with soft little caresses.

She tries to pretend it has nothing to do with the fact that Waverly Earp likes it, too.

***

“Ain’t seein’ much of Shae lately,” Nedley says easily as he chews on his pasta.

Nicole chews on her food a lot more than it is strictly necessary before swallowing. She considers just ignoring the comment, but Nedley knows her and she loves him too much for it.

“We’re a lil’… weird,” she settles on, shoveling more food in her mouth before he can urge her on.

“Weird, uh?” he asks, eyes soft, “how come?”

Hell if she knows.

Nicole chews and chews and chews until her jaw hurts.

“Hell if I know, sir,” she says.

He hums, and she knows he won’t let it go just yet.

“Ya broke up?” he asks.

“No, sir”.

“How come she ain’t ‘round no more?” he insists.

“We ain’t seein’ each other too much”.

“Why not?”

“’Cause we ain’t on the same page,” she shrugs, deciding clichés are good when they are true.

“What the hell does that mean, kid?”

God damn this old fool.

“It _means,_ sir, that she wants me to up and leave and follow her ‘round like a god damned dog ‘n I ain’t ever thinkin’ about what I want ‘n I ain’t ever allowed to take my god damned time ’n I ain’t even sure if I’m in love with her no more”.

And the words burn her throat and bruise her tongue and her ribs are too tight for her heart and it _hurts_ because it is all true.

She wills herself not to cry.

Nedley sighs, and then he smiles, because he is not a teenager but he knows what it is like.

“How the hell do I know?” she asks him, a little desperate.

He shrugs.

“Love ain’t got much to do with knowin’,” he says, “it’s just there”.

“But I _need_ to know, sir,” she begs him, “I don’t… I care about her. I ain’t meanin’ no harm”.

Nedley smiles.

“Ya never mean harm, chicken,” he beams, and his voice is thick with pride. “I guess if ya ain’t sure… ya have ya answer, dontcha?”

And Nicole knows he is right, he always is.

“She wants me to go to Vancouver with her, after graduatin’”.

Nedley smiles.

“’N what do ya want?”

And it hurts a little more, because Nicole wants to stay, she wants Nedley and she wants her friends and she wants all that she knows, because she is tired of change and she is tired of not belonging.

And it hurts too much to bear, so she doesn’t think about it, but she wants _green_ , she wants her garden and she wants green eyes made of long, tall fields of grass, covered in dew and hiding more than she could ever comprehend.

“I want my family,” she tells him, and it is true.

***

Nicole realizes that it isn’t hard to know what we want, not really, it is hard to admit it to ourselves when our wants and our needs are not what we wish they were, it is hard to accept that we cannot control our hollow bones and our little feathers and love is many things, but it is not mechanical and it is not relief.

***

And then she knows all of that, of course, but it is still hard, so she tries to ignore it as long as she wants, because years with someone are never easy to let go of.

But Shae knows her, of course she does, she always did.

***

When Nicole was seven years old, her mother, eyes glazed and fingers limp, took her to a festival meant to celebrate the years and years since the First World War was over.

There were people dressed like soldiers, and there were little stands with explanations on what kind of medicine they had and what weapons they used and why the War even happened, but Nicole was too young and her mother too careless, so she wandered around by herself until she found big, long holes on the floor.

Trenches, a man wearing a funny uniform told her. That’s where the soldiers hid. The real ones were bigger, wider, he said, but these were only to demonstrate.

(Nicole didn’t know what that word meant).

She played around them, jumping over the holes and descending the stairs inside and pretending she was a brave soldier fighting an impossible battle.

But then something happened, she’s not sure how, but her feet slipped as she jumped, and her first instinct was to spread her legs.

So she ended up with each foot resting against one edge of the trench, legs spread enough that it was uncomfortable but not painful. And she stayed there and she looked down and it looked deeper than what she remembered, and she was scared, terrified, really, because the earth under her old sneakers was soft and giving out, small rocks and cobblestones and pieces of soil rolling down into that impossibly deep hole.

She started crying, then, because she didn’t want to drop into the void, but she had no strength and no leverage to throw herself to either side.

So she just cried, no one there to hear her, until she knew that there was nothing else to do besides letting go and falling in and hoping for the best. So she closed her eyes and she allowed her stomach to quiver and protest and then she let go, butterflies and moths and eagles flying inside her belly as she dropped down for what felt like hours, but then her feet hit the ground and she did not break any bones.

She felt strong, undefeatable. A brave soldier fighting an impossible battle.

And coming out unscathed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> relationships are hard. i always envied those who ended relationships with a clear-cut reason, with evidence and logic to it.  
> sometimes things just turn into driftwood and there's not much we can do about it.
> 
> in a less depressing note, thank you for the extremely kind comments. it is a pleasure and a joy.


	11. Chapter 11

17.

Shae laughs a short, strange laugh, and it cuts Nicole’s soft skin.

“What happened to us?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole doesn’t know.

She sighs.

“I wish we were still…” she tries, but she doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.

Shae sits on her sidewalk, legs stretched in front of her, and it is ironic, really, that she didn’t invite Nicole to come inside.

Fitting, she supposes.

“This isn’t working, is it?” Shae asks, and she smiles the way we smile when we accept there is nothing else we can do.

Nicole shakes her head.

“I wish it did,” she tells Shae, and it is true, “I wish I was still…”

Shae lets out a whining little sob.

“I’m so sorry, Shae,” Nicole apologizes.

It isn’t easy to tell someone you are no longer in love with them.

“It’s not your fault,” Shae shrugs, resting her head on Nicole’s shoulder, and it is intimate and a heirloom. Nicole feels her warm tears as they’re absorbed by her shirt.

“Ain’t mean I can’t be sorry,” Nicole tells her, arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

They sit in silence, watching as a small, fragile cloud passes them by.

“I thought we’d get married,” Shae whispers, and it plucks off Nicole’s feathers.

“I wish I could be what you wanted me to be,” Nicole tells her.

Shae sighs.

“Me too”.

Silence, warm and wet and comfortable.

“I do love ya, ya know,” Nicole assures her, “I just ain’t lovin’ ya how I should”.

Shae sobs, body convulsing against Nicole, and Nicole realizes she’s crying, too.

“Ya deserve better”.

Shae takes in a deep breath, distancing herself from Nicole.

“Go home,” she tells her.

Nicole goes home.

***

She cries, of course she does, but it’s a guilty kind of cry, heavy with regret and painful with sorrow, but she’s relieved, and it somehow makes it all worst.

She cries against her pillow and she tells Nedley she isn’t hungry but she falls asleep easily, and sometimes things just don’t work the way we want them to, and when she wakes up the next morning she doesn’t feel like crying anymore.

***

Nicole is alone again.

It is funny, really, the cyclicity of it all. It’s a different loneliness, not like being lost in a sea of other people, but like coming home after spending time with your friends. She feels like she has something to look forward to, now, and she’s less like driftwood and more like a shark.

She sits on her familiar step, she eats her familiar sandwich, and she watches as students walk by, and it is comfortable being alone because you chose it so.

***

Shae walks by her sometimes.

They greet each other, and it is courteous, but little else. She feels Shae is angry, maybe not at her but at the universe, and it is hard to direct your anger at the universe and easy to ignore Nicole Haught, so Nicole allows her to grieve and to be with her annoying group of friends and probably bad mouth her a little, because she wants her to get over them and be happy, she really does, and if it means she will get a few sour looks every once in a while, she’s okay with it.

Sometimes, a teammate will invite her to have lunch with them and talk about basketball. Sometimes, she sits by herself and reads about botany as she eats her lunch. And sometimes, and those are Nicole’s favorite, Waverly Earp smiles at her from her table, and Nicole smiles back, because it is impossible not to.

***

“Y’all gettin’ Waverly anything?” Nicole asks, sat on the tall grass that covers most of Doc’s father’s property and chewing on a slice of pizza.

The night is warm and stuffy, and it feels like her words have to push themselves forward if they want to be heard.

Wynonna huffs.

“My love,” she says as she picks the crust Xavier just discarded and shoves it in her mouth.

Xavier fakes disgust, though Nicole knows he likes it when Wynonna does that.

“Nothing,” Rosita shrugs, “she’s like, sixteen. They don’t get birthday presents anymore”.

Doc nods, focused on the cigarette he is rolling.

“Some bourbon, I suppose,” he grunts, licking the paper before tightening the ends of the cigarette.

“That ain’t a present, Doc,” Nicole tells him.

“Of course it is,” he retorts, “it is polite to bring your own booze”.

She hates that he is kinda right.

“Xavier?” she asks, a little desperate.

“Uh,” he shrugs, noncommittal, “I don’t really do… gifts”.

She has the worst, most useless friends in the world.

“Ya ain’t helpin’,” she says to no one in particular.

“Just show up, Yeti,” Wynonna rolls her eyes, “no one cares about birthday presents”.

“It ain’t polite,” Nicole stresses, and Xavier smiles as he picks up another slice.

Wynonna swats at him, forcefully smacking a bug off his shoulder. He smiles at her, only because he is in love.

Nicole hates the summer almost as much as she hates the bugs, which chew on her plants’ leaves. She wonders if they’re doing alright.

“Get her something she will like,” Xavier says, like an idiot.

“Thanks,” Nicole groans, chewing, “that’s the least useful advice I ever got”.

Rosita laughs.

“Get her a book,” she tries, and then she lays over the tall grass and puts her head on Nicole’s thigh.

Uh.

“I ain’t know nothin’ about books,” Nicole says, an edge to her voice.

“Get the biggest one you can find,” Wynonna says. She swats a bug off her leg. “Why the hell are we _outside?”_

Doc lights his cigarette, answering her question.

“Shae helped me last year,” Nicole presses, “I ain’t know nothin’ about girls”.

Rosita chuckles, shrewd.

“I’m sure you know a lot about girls,” she says, and Nicole feels her thigh uncomfortably warm where it meets Rosita’s hair.

“What happened between you?” Xavier asks, brows furrowed as he tries to keep Wynonna from stealing the peperoni from his slice.

Nicole shrugs, staring at her feet.

“We just…” she sighs, “changed, I guess”.

Wynonna snorts.

“Nicole got so tall Shae couldn’t reach her mouth anymore”.

Because the world is profoundly unfair, the first thought in Nicole’s head is about Waverly Earp’s notably short stature.

“Ya ain’t need no reachin’ if ya lying down,” Nicole retorts, brain a little fuzzy and throat a little dry.

Doc laughs, choking on the smoke of his cigarette, as Wynonna gags.

“God,” she whines, “I did _not_ need to know that”.

Rosita laughs, and it is nice, the way Nicole’s leg shakes a little as she does.

“Know what?” she asks Wynonna, “that Nicole fucks?”

Nicole chokes on the cheese in her mouth, face so red she worries it might melt right off.

“Shut up!” Wynonna yells, chucking a peperoni slice on Rosita’s face, “stop talking about Q-tip’s hoo-ha”.

Nicole is astounded by how frequently Wynonna says a particular arrangement of words so bizarre she could never in a million years come up with herself.

“Can we go back to the birthday present?” she begs them, hiding her face behind her hands as Rosita laughs even more.

“Please go back to the birthday present,” Wynonna agrees, and Nicole is pretty sure that’s the first time they ever agreed on anything.

“Ya should be helpin’,” Nicole complains, “she’s ya sister”.

“Which is why I never got her a gift in my life,” Wynonna says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

“Just try to think of one thing you know she likes,” Xavier tells her, “and buy something which will remind her of it”.

The only thing Nicole can think of is tomatoes.

***

So she heads down to the fanciest gardening supply store in Purgatory and brings a check-list with her with all the things Waverly Earp might need to start her own garden.

She wonders if Waverly would be able to use the Homestead’s lawn, but she doesn’t like the thought of Waverly having to ask her father anything, so she decides on buying soil and pink ceramic pots because girls like pink, she guesses.

She prefers cherry tomatoes over Italian or Roma or Campari ones, but she isn’t sure if Waverly has a favorite, so she buys four different pots and four different packages of seeds. Waverly will need plowing and a lil’ diggin’, though not too much, so she buys a small ho-mi digger with a pink handle. There’s the fertilizer, of course, and she buys the ones with the right nutrients, she knows Waverly probably won’t know that tomatoes don’t like too much nitrogen and need more phosphorus than other plants.

She feels a little smart, then, knowing something Waverly does not.

She has to pay way over what she expected, but she thinks the pots and the digger are really cute and she never thinks things are cute, so she buys them anyways.

She finds she rather likes doing things on her own.

***

Nicole Haught is not good at thinking things through, and when she wakes up on the eighth of September she realizes it is a little too weird, even for her, to show up at a birthday party with two bags of soil, one bag of 5-10-10 fertilizer and four ceramic pots.

“Nedley,sir!” she yells, throwing open his bedroom door.

He gets up so quickly he has to sit right back down, dizzy and a little pale.

“Ya gonna have to take me over to ‘em Earps,” she tells him.

“ _What?”_ he groans, eyes narrowed.

“Ya gonna have to take me to the birthday party early,” she tells him.

“ _Now?”_ he asks her with a huff.

It is eight in the morning.

“Not now,” she rolls her eyes, “but earlier than eight p.m.”.

He stares at her with disbelief.

“Why did ya wake me up now?” he asks her, face a little too red.

She shrugs.

“So ya’d know”.

He rarely ever swears, but he does now, and she leaves his room before he kills her.

***

She calls Wynonna and tells her about her problem, enduring Wynonna’s two-minute long laughter before she tells her she’s the weirdest person she knows and that she should just show up a couple hours early, they could use someone to move the furniture around. 

***

So she does, wearing her very best jeans and her very best flannel shirt, putting down the fragile little pots and the digger on the porch before returning to Nedley’s car and grabbing the bags of soil and fertilizer.

The seeds are on her pocket, each package with a written note explaining in detail how to care for them the right way.

She throws the bags over one arm before ringing the door bell.

Ward Earp opens the door, his wallet and car keys on his hand.

“Afternoon, sir,” Nicole greets.

“Friend of theirs?” he asks simply, and Nicole wants to tell him that isn’t really the safest way to go about this.

She nods instead.

“I’m just leaving,” he tells her, leaving the door open before walking by her with curt steps.

She feels her hands tingle as she looks at his retreating form, bitter words stuck in her throat as he gets into his car.

He drives away from his youngest daughter’s birthday party.

Nicole breathes deeply, eyes closed.

She walks inside, dropping the bags before returning for the ceramic and the digger.

“Wynonna?” she yells.

There’s shuffling upstairs, and then Waverly Earp stands on top of the staircase, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt.

Nicole thinks of the goddess Alectrona.

“You’re… early,” Waverly says, but she’s smiling.

It’s nice.

“Wynonna told me ya needed someone to move the furniture,” she shrugs.

Waverly scoffs.

“God, she’s such a shit-ticket,” she groans, descending the stairs, “you really didn’t have to”.

Nicole shrugs again, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

Waverly looks down at her feet, pointing at the bags.

“What’s that?”

Nicole realizes she not only forgot the reason she was early but also that it was Waverly Earp’s birthday.

She damns herself to hell.

“Shut ya eyes!” she yells, and Waverly startles, eyes wide.

“What?” she asks, baffled.

“Shut ya damn eyes Waverly Earp!” Nicole yells, a little frantic.

Waverly covers her eyes with her hands.

“What’s going on?!” she asks, but there’s the delicious little tinge of laughter in her voice, and Nicole rolls it around her tongue.

“Ya turn around and ya run upstairs and ya shut ya eyes and sit on ya bed,” Nicole says, palms sweating, “please,” she adds, ever so gently.

“I can’t go upstairs with my eyes closed, Nicole,” Waverly tells her.

“Ya can open then when ya turn around,” Nicole tells her, “now go!”

Waverly giggles, and Nicole feels her skin warming with the sound. She watches as Waverly retreats upstairs, two steps at a time, and follows behind her, bags of soil and fertilizer in her hands. She places them on Waverly’s bedroom floor, too excited and too _gleeful_ to think about the last time she was there, and then she runs downstairs again, grabbing the ceramics with care and holding the digger like a sword.

She takes a moment to stare at Waverly Earp, long brown hair curling around her face, eyes tightly shut, lips stuck in an endless smile dripping with amusement.

Her father is Helios, and her mother is Rhode.

“Ya can open ya eyes now, Miss Waverly”.

Waverly giggles, opening her eyes slowly. Her smile falters, then, perplexity and disorientation as she stares at the items Nicole has carefully displayed on her small bedroom’s floor.

Nicole was never really theatrical, or creative, or much of anything, but she has an idea then, and she’s a little too immersed in her own joy to care about how silly it is.

She wields the digger, tapping it against Waverly’s shoulders deliberately.

Then she hands the ho-mi to Waverly.

“I’m namin’ ya a gardener,” she says simply.

Waverly lets out a nervous little laugh.

“What?” she asks, puzzled.

Nicole pulls out the packages with the notes and she hands them to Waverly Earp, and it feels too much like she’s shed her skin and gave it to Waverly to do with it as she pleases.

Waverly receives them with curiosity, looking at the packages. She turns them around, unrolling the paper. Nicole grimaces at her own handwriting, still childish and haphazard, as the smartest girl she knows starts reading it.

She stands there, and hours and months and years pass as she watches Waverly read the first long line of instructions, and then the second, and then the third, and then the fourth, and her palms sweat and the hair on the back of her neck starts to stick against her skin as she hopes and prays Waverly Earp is who she thinks she is.

Nicole started every note with a suggestion of a name for each kind of tomatoes, along with a brief distinction between them. Then, she made an orderly list of all the things Waverly had to do when planting them, followed by another, longer list with detailed explanations on how much sun they needed, how much water and fertilizer, how much love and attention and care.

Waverly finishes the notes, gently pushing Nicole as she kneels on the ground, picking up the ceramic pots and analyzing the ho-mi and the bags of soil and fertilizer as a scientist might examine their life’s work.

The silence feels like a presage, and Nicole never did like too much foreknowledge.

“Happy Birthday, Miss Waverly”.

Waverly doesn’t speak. She stares up, still knelt on the floor, with a pot in one hand and the notes in the other, clutched so tight Nicole worries they might be ruined. Her eyes shine, planets not too distant, surrounded by dozens of shining moons and with the promise of life. They glimmer, and Nicole worries she might start crying.

She didn’t think the present was _that_ bad.

“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Waverly Earp says, voice thick and _different,_ somehow, like when we hold something which feels too big for our hands.

“It ain’t nothin’ much,” Nicole tells her, shaking her head.

Waverly stands up, leaving the utensils on the floor.

She smiles, bright and glittering gold under the warm summer sun.

“It’s the best present in the world,” she says, and there’s a softness in her voice, and it reaches Nicole’s ears like a buzzing bumblebee.

And Waverly Earp hugs her, tight and long and _there,_ and Nicole remembers the first hug she ever received came when she was twelve years old, by a gruff man with a funny mustache. She feels that same heat, that same _something,_ except it is clearer, more glaring, more green.

“It ain’t nothin’,” Nicole repeats when Waverly lets go, smiling as she sits down on the floor and starts to examine her gifts.

“What’s this?” she asks Nicole, extending the ho-mi her way.

“It’s a ho-mi digger,” Nicole tells her, “it’s like a Korean shovel, but it’s more versatile. Ya can use it when ya plowin’, too”.

Waverly stares at it in wonder and amazement and there’s magic in her eyes.

“Ya like pink?” Nicole asks, retreating into herself as she sits down in front of Waverly.

Waverly chuckles.

“I do”.

Nicole lets out a breath.

“I thought ‘em girls liked pink but I ain’t too sure about these things”.

Waverly smiles up at her, small hands holding up the ceramic pot.

“They’re perfect, Nicole,” she says, and Nicole knows she is not lying, “thank you so much”.

“It ain’t-”.

“Don’t say it isn’t nothing,” Waverly huffs. “It’s… a lot”.

Nicole blushes.

“Ya welcome, then”.

Waverly smiles. She points at the notes.

“How do you even know all this?” she asks.

Nicole shrugs.

“I like knowin’ ‘em”.

Nicole did not know there could be so much wonder in the world.

“You’re so smart,” Waverly replies, voice full of awe, and it’s the first time in Nicole’s life anyone has ever said that to her.

She feels the tips of her ears burning.

“Ya the smart one,” she says, and she hates how high her voice sounds.

“I am,” Waverly smirks at her, “but so are you”.

How strange and beautiful it is too share a virtue with Helios’ daughter.

***

When Wynonna comes back home, car full with beer and cheap vodka, she finds Nicole sitting on her bed as she waits for Waverly to shower.

“Did you seriously get here at like, five?” she asks, though she smiles when she sees her.

“Had to give Waverly her present,” Nicole shrugs, smiling as Xavier follows Wynonna in. He waves at her, eyes clearly avoiding the obvious hickey on Wynonna’s neck. Nicole smirks at him.

“What did she say?” Wynonna asks, throwing herself on the bed and placing her feet up on Nicole’s legs.

Xavier stands on the doorway, looking a little too much like a bouncer.

“That it was the nicest thing anyone ever did for ‘er,” Nicole says, so much pride in her voice she worries she will choke.

Wynonna splutters.

“A bunch of _seeds_ and fucking _sand?”_ she asks, and Nicole likes how the flesh of her words is supported by their jealous bones.

“Have some respect, will ya,” Nicole retorts, “’n ya can’t even plant on sand”.

Xavier chuckles.

“It was very thoughtful, Nicole,” he assures her, “Wynonna’s mad because she didn’t get her anything”.

Wynonna throws her pillow at him.

***

No one is perfect, and Waverly Earp is human, so she creates a truly horrendous playlist, with so much sticky sweet pop music Nicole worries for her sanity, and they have to endure the god damned songs even when she’s upstairs doing her make-up and they’re downstairs pushing the furniture to the sides of the room and distributing the alcohol in the kitchen so that even the drunkest moron can find his way around it.

Wynonna lays on the couch, a bottle of whiskey in her hand, as she watches Xavier and Nicole groan as they push the heavy coffee table to block the way to the staircase.

(Nicole likes the idea of Perry Crofte being kept outside from Waverly’s room).

“Give me some of that,” Nicole points at the bottle, and Wynonna gives her the middle finger.

“BYOB, green giant”.

“Then why did ya buy a carful of booze, ya dumbass?”

Wynonna huffs, handing her the bottle.

Nicole wishes she hadn’t taken it, because when she starts to swallow the liquid inferno, Waverly Earp walks down the stairs, high heels and crop tops and short skirt and all shimmery and glittery and full of make-up, long hair curling around her face like a halo, and Nicole swallows too much of the whiskey at once, choking and coughing until it very tragically starts to drip down her nose, the burn so awful tears spring to her eyes.

She damns herself to hell once again.

Wynonna laughs so hard she rolls off the couch and onto the floor, still laughing, and Xavier seems to be trying his damn best not to laugh, too, and Waverly Earp is running towards her with a pile of napkins in her hands and Nicole wishes to god she had never been born.

“Are you okay?” Waverly asks frantically, staring as Nicole tries to stop the fuckin’ whiskey from going up to her fucking nose, coughing still as she covers her face with entirely too many napkins, eyes so watery she can only see the glimmer of Waverly’s clothes.

Life is so very terrible at times.

“I’m gonna die,” Nicole tells the room when she finally stops coughing, “it went to my god-damned nose”.

Wynonna laughs so loud it echoes, and Waverly joins in, and Nicole wouldn’t mind having whiskey up her nose again if she could hear that sound one more time.

***

Parties are loud, which Nicole hates, and they’re crowded, which Nicole also hates, but she sits outside on the front porch, her friends claiming the swing and the old lawn chairs as their own, and they drink a little too much and they talk about nothing and they laugh about everything, watching boys trying to flirt with girls and girls trying to drink too much and dumb kids passing out on the grass where someone was peeing a few minutes ago, and it is nice to see you’re not quite as young as you once were, specially when you have met yourself and you liked who they are.

***

She likes that she has a distraction for when Champ Hardy shows up, a little too gleeful, and she tries to listen to Rosita talking about _whatever_ when she spots Waverly greeting him on the stairs of the porch, hugging him tightly and pressing her lips against his cheek.

When Perry Crofte arrives, she repeats over and over in her head that she is drunk and Waverly is drunk and who even cares about Perry and Waverly and anyone in this god damned planet, and she tries not to be too relieved when Waverly only hugs him, a little tightly, sure, but it is not a kiss, and she tries not to think about it when they disappear inside the house.

***

Nicole turns into a chain-smoker when she is drunk, so she retreats a little farther down the lawn, sitting down on the grass as she lights her cigarette, looking at the vast expanse of nothingness that is the night sky.

She sips on her cold beer, and she likes the taste of it.

There’s shuffling, and then an obviously drunk Waverly Earp plops down on her side.

“Do you hate my party?” she asks, pouting.

Nicole laughs, open and manifest.

“I like ya party, Miss,” she assures Waverly.

Waverly reaches for her cigarette, and Nicole knows she will not like it, so she hands it to her.

Waverly grimaces, and Nicole likes how the small blaze in her lips illuminates her face.

She hands it back to Nicole, smoke swirling around her, crowning her a queen of something. Nicole doesn’t know of what, and she’s too drunk for melodramatics.

“Then why are you _here,_ ” Waverly points at the nothingness in front of them, “and not _there?”_

Nicole smiles.

“Just takin’ a break, mind,” she explains, “smokin’ ‘n all”.

Waverly considers it, serious, before nodding in agreement.

“Where’s Pressman?” she asks.

Nicole snorts.

“Why ya wanna know, Missus?” she asks with a grin.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“Because I _invited_ her,” she says, voice too affected, “she’s my _guest”._

Nicole looks at her, pulling on her cigarette.

“Ya invited my girlfriend,” she corrects, “but I ain’t have one no more” she says, blowing out smoke.

Waverly stares at her, a turmoil in her eyes too intense for Nicole’s drunk brain to process.

“You’re not with her anymore?” Waverly asks.

“No, ma’am,” Nicole says.

“Uh,” Waverly stares, watching the cigarette turning into ashes on Nicole’s lips, “would you look at that,” she says.

Indeed.

They stare at nothing for a moment, and it’s funny how much meaning nothingness holds when shared with someone we care about.

“Perry’s here,” Nicole says, stupidly.

Waverly lays down on the grass by her side.

“He is,” she says.

Nicole hums, finishing her cigarette before laying down beside her.

“Ya two together?” she asks, as casual as she can muster.

Waverly laughs.

“I’m never together with anyone,” she says simply, slurring the words.

Nicole hums.

“Ya still young, though,” she says, staring at stars less interesting than the girl beside her.

Waverly moves, resting her face against her hands as she lays on her side, looking down at Nicole.

“I’m old enough to know it’s not worth it,” she says, and she sounds sober now.

Nicole chuckles.

“Sixteen ain’t old enough to know nothin’,” she says.

Waverly grins.

“You’re going on about being together and being in love right after your own break-up?” she asks, irritatingly sober now.

Nicole’s brain tries it’s hardest to keep up.

“It ain’t ‘cause one time didn’t go right that everytime ain’t goin’ right”.

Waverly stares at her, and it is incandescent .

“If it ever goes right,” she says, “let me know”.

And then she gets up, wiping the grass off herself before walking away, swaying and giggling as she goes.

Nicole lights another cigarette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love my beautiful daughter nicole haught and she is the biggest fucking moron and there is nothing wrong with that
> 
> thank you very much for the extremely sweet comments!!


	12. Chapter 12

18.

Sometimes, when Nicole is at basketball practice, she looks up, distracted, and Waverly Earp is sat on the very last bench, a book in her lap and green eyes focused on Nicole.

Nicole waves, and she waves back.

She never stays long enough for Nicole to talk to her.

***

Nicole Haught decides she needs to buy a car.

Her license sits in her wallet, all but abandoned, and she is not necessarily keen to drive, really: her hands always get really sweaty and she worries she will run someone over or maybe hit a bird, but she thinks it is a little embarrassing to be driven everywhere by the town’s sheriff.

“I need a car,” she tells Nedley, chopping scallops as he covers the pieces of chicken breast with white wine and black pepper.

The kitchen smells like summer, somehow, though the air outside is crisp and foggy with the promise of fall.

“Is that so?” Nedley grunts, drinking the wine straight from the bottle, “ya need money, then”.

Nicole hums.

“I ain’t askin’ ya to get me a car, sir,” she assures him, reaching for the bottle.

He swats her hand away.

“Ya ain’t twenty one,” he grumbles, sitting down with an exaggerated groan.

“Ya know I drink already,” she tells him with a shrug.

She never did like lyin’.

“That’s ‘cause ya a lil’ outlaw,” he tells her, voice warm.

“It ain’t even make sense,” she reasons, covering a pan in olive oil before throwing the scallops inside.

“I ain’t the one who wrote the law”.

Nicole groans.

“Anyways, _sir,”_ she says, stirring the pan, “I need work”.

He considers it for a moment.

“What can ya do?” he asks her.

“Garden,” she tells him, because it is the only thing she can think of.

***

A week later, he tells her Lonnie conveniently needs someone to fix up his front lawn.

***

Nicole likes working.

She knew she liked it, of course, it is nice to do something with your hands, to have palpable, real proof that you are contributing, being useful. But the thing about working for Lonnie and Mrs. McAvoy and Richard Hoffner and the slow little web of friends and neighbors who start to hear about the tall girl who’s a better gardener than the people who work at the Gardener’s Supply Store is that she feels like she is _helping,_ which is something so inherent to who she discovered she is it is almost natural.

She doesn’t want to charge anything at first, but Nedley tells her to stop being silly and take the money, didn’t she say she wanted a car?, so she works after basketball practice and on weekends and she likes that the people give her ice cold water and coke and sometimes even a piece of cake. They all seem glad she’s there, and for the first time in her life, she feels like she isn’t just a part of a family, but of a community.

She listens to Mrs. McAvoy talk about her late husband as she cuts her grass and fertilizes her orchids, she tells Richard Hoffner he deserves better than the woman who cheated on him three times in the last month as she plants the Fiddle-leaf fig and the Grape Ivy she suggested he should add to his garden, and she likes to listen to the town of Purgatory’s problems and blessings and desires. She feels welcomed.

The town feels less like a place with people in it and more like a collection of people who decided to stay and build their homes and nest with their family, casting away ghosts and allowing the smell of fresh pasta to take over the streets.

And sometimes people she doesn’t know call her and ask her if she can fix their garden, and they don’t offer her anything besides the money, but she’s still glad, because when she walks to school the next day, she sees prettier, cared for plants, the smell of freshly cut grass still lingering, and she likes making the town greener.

***

Nicole sits on the grass outside the school building, humming to herself as she sips on a bottle of orange juice, when Waverly Earp takes off running towards her, distressed.

She stops by Nicole’s feet, blocking the sun, but Nicole feels warmer and brighter than before.

“Nicole!” Waverly says, anguish evident on her face.

“Miss Waverly,” Nicole greets, eyebrows raised.

Waverly lets a sweet little smile escape.

“You have to help me,” she says, voice high.

“What’s wrong?” Nicole asks, nervous, and her stomach feels a little like a grave.

“Artemis is _dying!”_ Waverly whines, and she looks like she might start crying.

Nicole snorts, setting down her orange juice.

“The Campari tomato plant?” she asks for confirmation.

Waverly sighs, sitting down beside her.

“ _Yes!”_ she says, exasperated. “I tried _everything!_ ”

Nicole chuckles.

“Tell ya what, Miss,” she says, “I’ll be over after practice to check ya tomatoes, yeah?”

Waverly’s eyes go a little wide.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, and the way she says it makes Nicole think she’d do just about anything.

“It ain’t a problem,” she says, though she’s tired from work and school and basketball and was looking forward to spending her Friday at home, “I can bother ya sister for a bit ‘n all”.

Waverly’s smile speaks of sweet watermelon and cold rivers, and she thanks Nicole before leaving her to wonder why her hands shake though she is not angry and she is not upset.

***

This time, Waverly Earp sits and waits on the last bench as Nicole goes inside the locker room after practice, and she is still there when Nicole comes back, freshly showered and shivering from the cold water.

She’s glad summer’s over.

“Ya didn’t have to wait here,” Nicole says, watching as Waverly walks down the steps of the bleachers.

Waverly shrugs, backpack slung over her shoulder.

“You don’t have to go all the day to my house just to check on a plant,” she retorts.

Nicole fakes a frown.

“She has a name, Waverly,” she chastises.

Waverly smiles.

“Sorry, check on _Artemis”._

They start walking, and it is quiet and melodic, the way their feet keep up the same pace. But then Waverly ruins it with a loud gasp.

“You called me Waverly!” she says, turning towards Nicole with a smile brighter than Dwarf stars.

“It’s ya name,” Nicole shrugs, nonchalant as she never is.

“Does this mean I’m no longer a lady?” Waverly asks her, giggling as she walks along.

“Ya still a lady alright,” Nicole assures her. “Miss Waverly,” she adds.

Waverly snorts.

“You don’t have to call me Miss,” she says, and it is not the first time.

Nicole shrugs, spotting Wynonna and the death trap she calls a car waiting for them on the school’s empty parking lot.

“Nicole Haught, as I live and breathe,” she greets, mocking a curtsy at her.

“Stop being mean, Wynonna,” Waverly chastises, throwing her backpack on the back seat before climbing onto the passenger’s.

Nicole smacks Wynonna upside the head as retribution, and Wynonna groans.

“Why are we babysitting Mr. Noodles?” she whispers at Waverly, settling on the driver’s side.

Waverly huffs.

“She has a name, Wynonna,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Nicole smiles. She likes the feeling of being sheltered, even when the threat of danger is little more than a joke.

“I know,” Wynonna shrugs, “it’s Slender Man”.

“That was a good one,” Nicole snorts.

Waverly looks back at her, clearly not amused with the encouragement.

Nicole smacks Wynonna again, for good measure.

***

Artemis is very much not dying.

Nicole smiles as Waverly brings her to her room, the four plants resting over an old wooden bench right in front of her only window.

It feels like a place of honor, and the shadows the plants cast create a maze of stems and light green around Waverly’s small bedroom.

Nicole wonders what they see, what they hear, what they know, and she envies them.

“Ya did a real good job with ‘em,” she praises, and it is true, because all four of the tomato plants seem to be thriving, a little taller than what she’d expect, not quite blooming yet, but green and healthy and happy.

Waverly did like her present, after all.

“If I was,” Waverly grieves, “Artemis wouldn’t be dying”.

Nicole snorts at the sourness in the girl’s voice.

“She ain’t dyin’,” she tells her.

Artemis is a little smaller, frailer than her sisters, and Nicole examines her, taking in the yellowing of her leaves and the twist of her stems.

Waverly hovers over her like a concerned mother, chewing on her nails.

“She gettin’ too much sun,” Nicole concludes, grabbing the pot and placing it on Waverly’s desk, farther from the window.

“What?” Waverly shrieks.

Real loud, this girl.

“She just gettin’ too much sun, Miss Waverly,” Nicole repeats, touching the soil of all of them to check if they need water. They do not. “Keep ‘er a lil’ farther away from the window, is all”.

“That’s it?” Waverly asks, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

Nicole shrugs with a sheepish smile.

Waverly throws herself on her bed, sighing in relief.

“I can’t believe I made you come here for _this_ ,” she groans, and Nicole likes that she is a little embarrassed.

She finds she likes Waverly Earp, in a general sense, and all that comes with her.

“It ain’t a bother,” Nicole says.

Waverly groans a little louder.

“You’re staying for dinner,” she tells Nicole, and there is no space for arguments, “it’s the least I can do”.

Nicole would like to tell her that the least and the most she could do was stay as she was, right there, laying on her bed and staring up at her ceiling with a soft, lost gaze, dainty little fingers running through her own hair and dragging themselves over every inch of Nicole’s brain.

But instead, she sighs in relief when Wynonna barges in the room, complaining about them having fun without her.

***

“You’re working now?” asks Wynonna, feet propped up on Waverly’s bed as she chews on flaming hot Cheetos.

Nicole nods, humming as she crouches down to admire Waverly’s plants.

She really is taking good care of them.

“Ya should, too,” she says after a moment, absent-mindedly dragging her fingers through their leaves.

She likes the thin little hairs covering their stems, the little pinprick as her digits take them in.

Wynonna groans.

“Let me _live,_ Rosemary & Thyme”.

Nicole stands up, hovering in front of Waverly’s bed for a second too long.

“Come on,” Waverly gestures, “sit down”.

Nicole feels her ears burn as she sits down on the very edge, back resting uncomfortably against the cold wall. The blankets smell like fresh ginger and jasmine.

“What are you working with?” Waverly asks, legs crossed and covered in pink blankets.

“Gardens,” Nicole says, “doin’ some gardenin’ for ‘em folks”.

“That’s so cool!” Waverly exclaims, and Nicole sometimes envies how amazing the world seems to be to Waverly Earp.

“It ain’t nothin’,” Nicole shrugs, “I just need to buy a car”.

“Finally,” Wynonna says, mouth full and unhealthily orange, “putting on your big girl pants”.

Nicole scoffs.

“Ya say that while bein’ unemployed ‘n eatin’ Cheetos”.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Wynonna scoffs, “this is literally my _ideal_ future”.

There is shuffling downstairs, then, and the room goes eerily quiet as muffled voices seem to argue, slowly getting louder and louder and louder still, and Nicole does not like it when Wynonna Earp looks this serious and is this quiet.

“Baby girl?” she says, “wanna go out for dinner?”

Waverly is up and grabbing her jacket before Nicole has even processed the question.

***

How strange it is, watching the owners of a house leave it by through the backdoor, but the yelling is absurd, so Nicole follows them, pretending not to notice it.

They sit in silence in Wynonna’s car, Nicole’s ears ringing and spine twisting around itself.

Waverly looks a little less like the one Nicole thinks she can call her friend, and a little more like the one who said she’d never drink in her life.

It’s bitter, the way their eyes meet through the rearview mirror.

***

Nicole sometimes wonders what she would be like if she hadn’t left her parents when she did. If she’d been raised by fists and scorn.

She likes to think she is a good person, that she’d learn to handle herself and to handle her parents and maybe manage to get them to quit the needles and the powders and the nameless things they did. But it is wishful thinking, she knows in her core.

Three days before she left them, she stared at a needle full of something she didn’t know for three hours as her parents slept soundly on their bedroom.

It just lay there, staring at her, mocking her.

And she was always so curious, see, so desperate to understand what could possibly be worth the debris that was their lives, and the needle was an offer, really, an invitation.

But Nicole Haught had always been terrified of needles, so she went inside her room and she ate the hidden gummy bears which were shoved inside her pillow case, and three days later she decided that she would not always be that scared of needles, and that sometimes you are just too exhausted to be frightened.

And so she left.

And it is no use, really, the wondering, because she left and she is alive, and she gives life every once in a while. She pays it back.

***

It is late and cold, and Nicole wraps her jacket tightly around herself as she cramps up the heating of Nedley’s truck, searching for anywhere still open and selling food. She doesn’t remember fall being this cold.

She drives carefully, though there are no other cars on the road, and she sighs with relief when she spots an open convenience store. She parks the car haphazardly, stomach protesting as she climbs out and jogs over to the fluorescent lights.

Nicole picks up a bag of gummy bears along with sliced bread and instant mac ‘n cheese, too exhausted and cold to even consider cooking anything, paying quickly and exiting the store with a huff.

Her entire Saturday had consisted of enduring Bunny Loblaw yell at her as she took care of her garden, complete with snide remarks on her _lifestyle_ and subtle suggestions on churches she could attend, and she is nice and good and whatever else but she is _tired_ and maybe a little angry.

***

And god damn Waverly Earp to hell because when Nicole is almost home she spots a small group of teenagers huddled together on the main road’s sidewalk, clearly drunk, and Champ Hardy is kissing Waverly Earp and she is letting him.

Nicole feels a strong, unbearable urge to throw up, throat burning with bile as she feels her stomach turn into a casket, and she curses Waverly and tells her to go to hell and drives right by them before she remembers she is sixteen years old and on the sidewalk of a dangerous stretch of road with a bunch of idiotic boys and she damns _herself_ to hell when she makes an abrupt U-turn and goes right back to where they are, thanking god and baby jesus and whoever the hell else that Champ is no longer kissing her.

She stops the car, checking to see if there are any others coming before crossing the road.

“Waverly?” she calls, and glassy little eyes stare back at her and Waverly looks so terribly miserable right there, out of place and out of time and so very desolate, and Nicole knows the world was not made for pretty creatures like her.

“Nicole?” Waverly asks, and there is undeniable relief in her voice as she stands up abruptly, brushing Champ’s hand away as she walks towards Nicole.

Nicole ignores the multitude of eyes staring at them like hungry little hyenas.

“You need a ride?” she asks simply, and she prays Waverly will say yes.

Waverly Earp smiles, herself again, if only for a moment.

“Yeah”.

***

They’re silent for a while, and Nicole lets Waverly choose a terrible radio station. It is worth it, really, because Waverly sings when she is drunk, and so Nicole is blessed with the quiet little singing along to terrible lyrics as she drives all too slowly for the emptiness of the road.

“Are you okay?” she tries.

Waverly looks over at her with curiosity.

“Sure,” she lies, “why?”

Nicole shrugs.

“Ya looked a lil’… lost there”.

Waverly hums, staring back at the road. Nicole tries to forget Champ Hardy and his ugly lips and his grabby hands, but there is still the sting of bile on the back of her tongue and she worries she might have to stop to throw up by the side of the road.

“You look a little green,” Waverly giggles.

Of course she does.

“I’m tired ‘s all,” Nicole lies, eyes desperately focused on the road. “You wanna head home?” she asks Waverly.

Waverly shrugs.

“I guess,” she says tentatively, “where else?”

Nicole thinks for a second.

“I ain’t sure,” she says, “just makin’ sure that’s where ya headin’”.

Waverly chuckles, and it is a little too thick.

“I don’t _want_ to,” she says, as if telling Nicole a secret.

Nicole nods.

“You don’t have to,” she says, “I can tell Wynonna ya with me”.

Waverly giggles.

“Nicole Haught,” she says, roguish and devilish and dangerous, “are you kidnapping me?”

Nicole feels her neck and her ears and her entire god-damned body turn red, hands holding onto the stirring wheel so tightly her knuckles go white.

“I ain’t kidnappin’ no one,” she says, “just askin’ if ya going home”.

Waverly giggles again, a little drunk and a little sweet and a little everything Nicole can think of. Time drags on like a sinking ship.

“Do you remember what you told me?” Waverly asks suddenly, voice serious, and Nicole looks over at less curious eyes. She seems focused.

“About what?” Nicole asks.

Waverly just stares straight ahead for a while.

“About your dad”.

Ah.

Nicole sighs.

“Yeah,” she nods, “why?”

“Is it true?” Waverly asks, and she’s no longer singing.

“Course,” Nicole says, a little offended, “I ain’t a liar”.

Waverly snorts.

“I’m not saying you are,” she defends, “it’s just…”

Nicole drives, skin tingling and eyes unblinking.

“I didn’t know,” Waverly finally says.

“Ain’t any way for you to know”.

“Yeah, but I just,” Waverly sighs, frustrated, “I had this… idea of you, right?”

Nicole hums.

“And that doesn’t… it doesn’t fit in”.

Nicole looks over at her.

“’N what does?” she asks, curious.

Waverly lets out a tired chuckle.

“Wynonna, I guess. Having whatever you wanted. Being all… cool and different and rebellious,” Waverly says, each word punctuated by an exaggerated flair.

Nicole laughs.

“Ya think I’m cool?” she asks.

That might just be the biggest compliment she’s ever received.

“Don’t be getting cocky, now,” Waverly groans, and Nicole laughs even more.

Waverly Earp thinks she’s cool.

“’N now that I have an addict for a dad?” she asks, and it is quiet as they arrive at the Homestead, nothing but the howl of the wind and the ruffling of leaves.

Waverly doesn’t leave her seat.

She shrugs.

“It’s not that,” she says, “not exactly”.

Nicole doesn’t like half answered questions.

“What is it, then?”

“You’re not what I thought you were,” Waverly says with an annoyed little huff, “and I don’t… I don’t like being wrong”.

Nicole looks at her, really looks, taking in how dark her eyes are and how her sharp jaw is turned into a blade by the shadow of the moon and the way her fingers fidget and twist and turn with no rhyme and no reason.

“What am I, then?” Nicole asks her.

Waverly sighs.

“You’re… too much like me. Except you’re better”.

Nicole crooks her lips up in a half smile.

“Havin’ bad dads ain’t mean two people are the same”.

“I know. It’s not just that”.

And she’s quiet and serious and Nicole knows she will not explain herself further.

But Nicole likes being alone with Waverly Earp.

“Do you want a gummy bear?” she offers.

Waverly looks up, eyes narrowed.

“What?”

Nicole picks up the bag, handing it to Waverly.

Waverly Earp laughs.

“I’m starting to think you’re wooing me with this many gifts,” she says, much to Nicole’s dismay.

She battles on.

“It’s workin’, ain’t it?” she grins, “ya ain’t hate me no more”.

Waverly chuckles, shaking her head.

“I never did,” she says, quietly, and the moon seems to love Waverly Earp, for she is the prettiest Nicole has ever seen her, “I was just scared”.

“Of what?”

Waverly looks at her quizzically.

“Of you” she says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

And then she opens the bag and she’s chewing on Nicole’s favorite food, and Nicole does not want to ruin it with questions about Champ and fathers and fears.

They eat in silence, and it is exquisite.

***

When Waverly climbs out of the car, thanking her profusely, Nicole feels a sting so deep in the marrow of her bones she wants to beg Waverly to come back and go home with her and just be _there._

She doesn’t, of course.

But then, Waverly Earp turns right back and pokes her head back in.

“Did you see me with Champ?” she asks, and it is so casual she could be asking about the weather.

Nicole swallows dryly, nodding.

Waverly looks at her for a very long time.

“We’re not together,” she says with finality, as if she’s offering her a clue, and then she’s gone.


	13. Chapter 13

18.

The sound of a basketball bouncing against the wood of the school’s court is repetitive and soothing, and Nicole Haught finds herself entranced by it, the echoing around the empty gymnasium as certain as her own skin and bones.

“You keep having to babysit me,” comes a voice, all the more soothing and all the less certain, though it caresses her skin and bones nonetheless.

Nicole lets the ball roll away from her grasp.

“Miss Waverly,” she greets with a crooked smile, sweating through her sweatshirt, “I keep tellin’ ya it ain’t a bother”.

Waverly smiles back, leaning against the metal rails separating the entertainers from the entertained.

“Thank you,” she says, “for rescuing me”.

Nicole was never much of a knight, to be quite honest.

“Just happened to pass by,” she assures, pulling up the sleeves of her sweatshirt before resting against the rails, the metal warm with the promise of closeness.

Waverly hums. Green eyes tickle the skin of Nicole’s forearms.

“Not everyone would pass by and come back and take me home,” she says matter-of-factly, and Nicole feels there is a hidden meaning in her words, but she was never good at hide and seek.

She was always good at being a little brave, though.

“It ain’t proper to leave a lady unattended with ‘em boys,” she says, a sly smile almost unfamiliar as it curls up her lips.

Waverly giggles.

“I wasn’t _unattended,_ ” she says, and she is so very playful, this creature with the soft little hands and sharp jaw and undefinable eyes, “I was with Champ”.

Nicole likes the way she says his name, it sounds different than when she said it while pressing an ice pack against his stupid head.

“Ain’t that worse?” Nicole asks, feeling a little like Danny Zuko himself.

Waverly huffs, but it is not angry.

“Sometimes,” she confides with a whisper.

They stand there for a moment, and the metal is warmer and warmer, and Nicole can feel the sweat gathering on her lower back though she is perfectly still.

“Give me ya phone,” she asks, and Waverly complies without asking.

Nicole punches in her number, adding a tomato emoji to her name before returning it to Waverly Earp.

Waverly smiles, bright and fresh.

“If ya ever need rescuin’,” Nicole tells her with a grin, and Waverly giggles, the sound of waterfalls as they destroy stone and make themselves at home.

Nicole’s heart always did feel like a tough little thing.

“Wynonna hates that we’re friends now,” Waverly tells her with a grin, putting her phone in her pocket.

Oh my.

“We’re friends?” she asks, and it is the memory of a pounding in her skull and ice packs against her skin.

Waverly laughs.

“Of course,” she says with a shrug, “you shared your gummy bears with me and everything”.

That she did.

***

Nicole Haught never, in her entire life, would have expected to have this many friends, really, at least without counting her garden.

It’s nice to be seen.

***

It is a cold day, too cold for this time of year, and Nicole relishes how hot her coffee still is, sipping on it distractedly as she allows her eyes to meet Waverly Earp’s tanned skin.

Waverly stares at her, and then she waves her over.

Nicole stops, mouth still filled with coffee, confused. She points at her own chest.

Waverly laughs a soundless laugh before waving her over again.

Nicole wraps her fleeced jacket tightly around her, picking up her thermos before walking over to Waverly’s table.

“Yeah?” she croaks out, ignoring how comically narrow Champ Hardy’s eyes are.

“Come on,” Waverly gestures for the seat beside her, “stop brooding by yourself”.

“I ain’t broodin’,” Nicole tells her, but she sits down anyways.

A girl Nicole knows from how often she’s sat with Waverly stares at her before clicking her fingers. 

“You’re the girl who fixed our garden!” she exclaims with excitement.

Nicole ain’t ever seen a stranger this excited to see her before.

“Ya Mr. Smith’s daughter?” she asks, the girl’s face not entirely unfamiliar, her long, shiny hair a little too entrancing.

She nods, grinning.

“You even planted some flowers and everything!” She says, and Waverly’s hand rests on Nicole’s knee, a little squeeze which tells Nicole something she cannot understand.

“You’re a _gardener?”_ Champ Hardy asks her with a scoff.

Another girl clicks her tongue at him.

“At least she’s _something,”_ says a girl with blonde hair and fair skin.

Since when did Purgatory’s High royal family like Nicole Haught?

Waverly nods in agreement, rolling her eyes at Champ. He looks like a scolded puppy, eyes cast downwards, and Nicole could swear she hears a little whine.

“Ya dad has a nice lawn,” she tells the girl with the nice hair.

Waverly’s tiny little hand squeezes her knee a little harder.

“Where did you learn all of that?” the girl asks her.

Nicole sips on her coffee before shrugging.

“Just… around”.

The girl with the nice, shiny hair smiles a nice little smile at her, and then Waverly Earp is almost ripping her kneecap off.

“Wynonna’s a pain without you to distract her,” she very swiftly changes the subject, stabbing her innocent tofu with unnecessary strength.

“I keep tellin’ ‘er to come over when she wants to but she’s too lazy,” Nicole tells her, “I ain’t the one with a car”.

Waverly looks up at her with a soft grin.

“Did you drive me home with a stolen truck?” she asks, and Nicole splutters, hot coffee burning her throat.

“It ain’t stolen,” she groans, “it’s Nedley’s”.

Waverly laughs a knowing laugh, and Nicole knows she knew that already.

God damn her to hell.

***

As it turns out, Waverly is still entirely too powerful for someone that tiny, and she very impolitely chastises Nicole for brooding by herself whenever she can, so Nicole decides it is best to avoid the Earp’s rage and just accept her fate, and the world is a funny place, really, because Nicole Haught sits on the overcrowded table filled with dumb teenagers who think of themselves as gods because they have a lot of friends, and she finds she quite likes it if it means sitting side by side with Waverly Earp and hearing all of those stupid teenagers talk about how good she is at gardening.

***

And one day, as she’s gathering her things to leave her English classroom, she spots a familiar pair of shoes standing by her desk, and familiar coconut shampoo invades her brain, and she feels this last year of High School is nothing but a re-rendering of her entire school life.

“Shae,” she greets, wondering if it is appropriate to smile at your ex-girlfriend when greeting her.

Shae looks mad, though, so she thanks god she didn’t.

“Somethin’ wrong?” she asks, zipping up her backpack and meeting hard toffee. Shae’s eyes are so very different.

It’s a shame, really.

“With the cool kids now, uh?” Shae asks.

Nicole sighs, tired.

“Waverly ain’t lettin’ me sit on my own,” she tries to explain, but it is not a good idea.

Shae scoffs at the name.

“Waverly,” she nods to herself, and Nicole realizes she’s jealous.

She was always a lil’ slow, mind.

She shrugs.

“We’re friends,” she says carefully.

“And we are not?” Shae asks, gesturing between them.

Nicole leans her head to the side, a small smile forming on her lips.

“Ya ain’t too keen on bein’ my friend no more,” she says softly.

“We decided on staying friends,” Shae retorts, arms crossed over her chest.

“We did,” Nicole says, “but then ya changed ya mind”.

She feels a little angry, really. She feels like she’s in debt and Shae has come to collect it, but she has no idea why now and what that debt even is.

“I never said that”.

“Ya ain’t need to say it,” Nicole shrugs, “just look at me the way ya did. Ya still do, really”.

Shae sighs, throwing herself on the chair behind her as if her bones are too heavy to be held upright.

“You’re just…” she starts, rubbing her eyes, “you’re doing so _well”._

Nicole feels her hollow bones cracking.

She says nothing.

“I miss you,” Shae tells her, and her voice is empty.

Nicole smiles, holding her hand. It is all she can do.

“I love ya, Shae,” she assures her, “you’ll be well, too. We just on different clocks, is all”.

Shae smiles a pained smile.

***

“Did you guys know Nicole’s cool now?” Wynonna says, occupying the entirety of her couch and balancing a bottle of whiskey on her stomach.

Nicole groans, throwing her head backwards against the headrest of the reading chair. She likes the Homestead when Ward Earp is not home.

Unfortunately, it is quite often.

“Is that so?” Doc inquire, eyes focused on the playing cards in his hands.

“She’s hanging with _Waverly,”_ Wynonna says, voice childishly affected.

“Ya real jealous,” Nicole grunts at her, watching Rosita try and help Xavier beat Doc.

It’s a lost cause, really.

“You are, though?” Rosita asks, giving up and throwing herself on the floor by Nicole’s feet.

“Waverly kept tellin’ me to quit broodin’,” Nicole explains with a shrug.

Wynonna snorts.

“God,” she says, swinging her bottle, “that girl can’t see _anyone_ minding their own business without getting involved”.

Nicole sips on her beer, allowing Rosita to rest her head against her calves.

“I’m glad you’re doing alright,” Xavier says, examining his cards, “worried you’d be too lonely”.

Nicole scoffs.

“I ain’t lonely”.

“Yeah, Dolls,” Wynonna agrees, “not having any friends is a fashion choice”.

Nicole groans at her.

“Oh, quit it,” Rosita chastises, “as if any of you had any other friends, too”.

Doc opens his mouth, indignant, but nothing comes out.

Nicole laughs.

“I need to start gettin’ ya zucchinis,” she tells Rosita, “ya the only one worth a damn here”.

Rosita chuckles.

“I’m worth more damns than you can fucking _count,_ Bigfoot,” Wynonna says, swinging the bottle again.

“How many damns is alcoholism worth?” Xavier asks her, and she kicks him on the shoulder.

Nicole thinks of something.

“Shae ain’t happy with it,” she says quietly.

Rosita looks up at her.

“Shae?” she asks, her and her god damned limes, “you two back together?”

Nicole shakes her head.

“She just… came to talk to me,” she says, “seemed real pissed I was hangin’ with ‘em”.

“With who?” comes the voice of Alectrona.

Nicole throws back the beer, emptying the bottle in one gulp.

Waverly Earp pushes Wynonna’s legs off the couch, settling down beside her sister.

“With you,” Wynonna snorts.

Nicole wonders if Nedley could come pick her up yet.

“What did I do?” Waverly asks, a little too innocent.

Nicole wonders when she got home.

“Nothin’,” she says, “it ain’t nothin’”.

Waverly narrows her eyes at her.

“Why’s your _ex_ mad at me, then?” she asks, an edge to her voice.

Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

“No one’s mad at no one,” Nicole replies, standing up to grab a second beer.

“Shae’s mad at you because you stole her girlfriend,” Rosita says with a smirk, and Nicole trips on her own feet as she makes her way to the kitchen.

“No one stole no one!” she yells, voice shrill and a little frantic.

She hears laughter and she wonders how long it would take for her to walk home in the snow.

“Did I, now?” Waverly asks Nicole when she returns, face red and bottle of beer already half empty.

Nicole groans, sitting back down.

“It ain’t _nothin’,”_ she repeats, narrowing her eyes at Doc when he snorts, “she just angry we ain’t talkin’ no more”.

Waverly looks at her, puzzled.

“Didn’t you break up, though?” she asks.

Nicole sighs, exasperated.

“We _broke up,”_ she whines, “it ain’t mean we’re archenemies, now”.

Wynonna snorts.

“Yeah, Waverly,” she helps, “that’s you,” she does not.

Waverly looks entirely too thrilled with the conversation, and Nicole stares at Xavier, pleading. He shrugs, apologetic.

“Y’all always too damn interested in my love life,” she groans.

Rosita pats her knee affectionately.

“That’s ‘cause you’re the only half of the couple we got after the divorce,” she says.

“We should’ve kept Shae instead of Gandalf,” Wynonna says, “she’s more interesting than Freddy Krueger over here”.

Nicole grunts.

“Freddy Krueger?” she asks, “what does that have to do with anythin’?”

Four pairs of eyes turn expectantly towards Wynonna Earp. She rolls her own.

“He’s a _gardener,_ you idiots,” she sighs.

“He’s a serial killer,” Xavier retorts.

“Isn’t he a pedophile?” Waverly inquires.

“He’s not even _tall,_ ” Nicole tells Wynonna.

“Jesus Christ,” Wynonna sighs dramatically, “all my friends are idiots”.

“I’m your sister,” Waverly corrects her.

Wynonna sighs louder.

“He ain’t tall,” Nicole repeats.

“I didn’t say he was _tall,_ Naomi Campbell”.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“Are ya callin’ me a model?” she asks.

Waverly and Rosita start laughing.

“She’s _tall,”_ Wynonna says, exasperated.

“I’m afraid Wynonna is running out of nicknames,” Doc grins, winking at Nicole.

“Oh, shut up,” Wynonna groans, “isn’t it time for you guys to go home?”

Nicole snorts.

“We’re Waverly’s guests, now,” Rosita says casually.

Wynonna grumbles.

“Ask her to buy you beer next time, then,” she says, and Nicole quite likes to mock Wynonna Earp for once.

***

It’s almost midnight on a Friday, and Nicole is still trying to figure out how to get Timothy the god-damned dill to stop trying to kill his brothers and sisters when her phone rings.

She wipes her hands clean before reaching for it inside her pocket.

It is an unknown number.

“Yeah?” she speaks into the receiver, voice eerily loud as it floats over fresh snow and a frozen garden.

Her hands shake with the cold.

“Nicole?” says Helios’ daughter.

Nicole feels her hollow bones contract and expand inside her chest.

“Miss Waverly?” she asks, voice despondent. It is never a good sign when someone calls you this late.

“Can you…” she starts, and there are loud noises as she breathes in, “god… can you come pick me up?” she asks.

Nicole runs up the front porch, barging inside and looking for the keys to Nedley’s truck.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“Home”.

***

When Nicole arrives after what feels like an eternity, her headlights illuminate a small figure sitting on the steps of her front porch.

Waverly Earp stands up, running towards the car.

She opens the door, and it is absolutely freezing outside.

“Are you okay?” Nicole asks, frantically searching for memories of herself on Waverly’s skin.

She seems unharmed.

“Yeah,” she nods, a little shaken, “daddy just had a few of his… friends over,” she says, “I don’t like the yelling”.

Nicole nods, starting the car.

“Where’s Wynonna?” she asks quietly.

“With Dolls”.

Ah.

It’s quiet, sticky and uncomfortable.

“He never hit us,” Waverly says, staring at the snow falling against the windshield.

Nicole nods.

“That’s… good”.

Waverly sighs.

“I guess”.

Nicole grimaces.

“Can I… Who are his… friends?” she asks.

Waverly sighs again, heavy and tired.

“Just some people he… has business with. I don’t know,” she shrugs, “he likes getting involved with the wrong people. And then things go wrong and they start showing up to try and fix it”.

Nicole knows better than to ask for details.

“Are you hungry?” she tries, “I haven’t eaten yet”.

Waverly smiles, and the snow melts around them.

“I am, actually”.

***

Nicole hates diner music. It’s that nameless, generic genre of music with no clear style or singer or identity, and she hates how bland and empty and annoying it is.

“I like this song,” says Waverly as they walk in an almost empty diner by the edge of town.

Of course she does.

They sit down, and Waverly seems distracted, tapping her fingers against the oily surface of the table as she stares at the snow falling outside.

When a server appears beside them, Nicole orders a coffee and two double cheeseburgers, one as take away. Waverly orders French fries.

(Nedley would kill her if she didn’t bring him anything).

“Were you sleeping?” Waverly asks, concern evident on the creases around her eyes.

“Nah,” Nicole shrugs, “dealin’ with Timothy”.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“He’s my Dill,” Nicole explains, “he ain’t know nothin’ about personal space”.

Waverly laughs, and it is honest and clear as crystal.

“He’s a plant,” she nods to herself, “of course”.

“He’s a gentleman,” Nicole corrects, “well, not a real gentleman. He gettin’ real rude” she grumbles.

Waverly smiles, resting her chin against her palms.

“You were gardening at midnight?” she asks, curious.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ain’t able to sleep thinkin’ bout that damn dill trynna kill his brothers”.

Waverly giggles.

“God,” she says, and her eyes are soft as the feathers of the baby duck Nicole found by the edge of the road when she was seven years old. “You’re special”.

She’d managed to find the duck’s mother, in the end, by a pond near the road. It was one of the only fond memories she had of her childhood.

Nicole feels the bird inside her ribcage slamming itself against his confines.

“I ain’t nothin’ much,” she says, fingers picking at the dirt in her fingernails.

Waverly lets out a soft little breath.

“Sometimes I think you’re a little too much,” she whispers out, and were Nicole not completely fixated by the way Waverly Earp’s lips move, she might not have understood it.

She does, though, and her ribs start to hurt with the force of her heart.

The server rescues her, placing down their order with a grunt, leaving before Nicole can thank him.

Nicole takes a large bite before Waverly can damn her even more.

“Why did you break up with her?” Waverly asks, eyes glimmering with an unknown promise.

Nicole considers the question for a moment, sipping on her too hot coffee.

“I wasn’t in love with her no more,” she says honestly.

Waverly’s eyebrows shoot up.

“That’s…” she snorts, “harsh”.

Nicole shrugs.

“It’s the truth”.

Waverly starts eating.

“Why were ya with Champ?” she asks.

Retribution and whatnot.

Waverly scoffs.

“I’m not with him,” she says.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Why were ya kissin’ him?” she corrects.

Waverly shrugs.

“Nothing better to do,” she says nonchalantly.

Nicole feels her throat constrict.

“Is that why ya kiss people?” she asks before she can stop herself, “’cause there ain’t nothin’ better to do?”

Waverly shrugs, a sly smirk appearing as she chews.

“I kiss people because I want to kiss them,” she says.

Sometimes Nicole worries about Waverly and how she seems to think the world is made of desire and action and nothin’ else.

Nicole’s world feels so much more complicated than that.

“You’ve never been in love?” Nicole asks her, coffee burning her tongue.

Waverly shrugs.

“No”.

The words burn more than the coffee, and Nicole tastes the rawness of her own tongue.

“You’re awfully interested in Perry and Champ and my… kissing choices,” Waverly says, eyebrow raised as she plucks a fry out of her basket, biting on it deliberately.

Nicole’s throat is little more than the eye of a needle.

“I’m tryin’ to make sense of ‘em is all,” she says, and it is not a lie, really.

Waverly scoffs.

“What does that mean?”

Nicole shrugs, staring at her sandwich.

“It’s weird,” she says tentatively, “ya with someone like Champ”.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“What about him?” she asks, and there is a bear trap there somewhere, covered in leaves and twigs and moss.

Nicole scoffs.

“He’s real stupid ‘n real ugly,” she says simply.

She expects Waverly to chastise her. Yell, maybe.

Waverly laughs.

“He’s not _that_ bad,” she says, still giggling.

“N he wanted to beat me up,” Nicole pouts.

How terribly embarrassing it is to care about other people.

“He’s past that,” Waverly tells her, though there is a hint of embarrassment on her tone, “I made sure of it”.

Waverly always makes sure of so many things.

“You deserve better,” Nicole shrugs.

Waverly lets out a long, drawn out breath.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” she says.

The silence around them is foggy and crisp.

Nicole tries not to stare too much as Waverly eats, watching the snow outside.

“I ran away, ya know,” she says, almost without thinking.

Waverly looks at her, eyebrows raised.

“What?”

Nicole smiles.

“I ran away from home. From my dad ‘n my mom,” she shrugs, “that’s why I live with Nedley”.

Waverly looks like she’s attending a funeral.

“When?” she asks.

Nicole counts the years in her head, though she already knows.

“Six years ago. Was twelve”.

“Did he…” Waverly tries, and Nicole knows what she wants to ask.

“Sometimes. Beat me real bad, once. Broke ‘em ribs ‘n all”.

Waverly stares at her as if a sudden movement might scare her away.

They’re both lost kittens, really.

“You said you had worse,” she whispers.

Nicole shrugs, a sheepish smile begging Waverly to understand it is done and over and she is fine, she really is.

“When I was younger,” Waverly says, somber, “I used to wish he’d… I don’t know. Slap me or something. Anything,” she sighs, dissolving against the dirty booth she sits on, “anything that’d prove he could see me. That I wasn’t a ghost”.

Nicole smiles knowingly. She reaches for Waverly’s hand.

“Ya seem real to me,” she says with a smile, and it is a lie, really.

Waverly Earp seems like a dream.

***

“Where to, Missus?” Nicole asks, turning on the heater as they climb into the truck.

Waverly frowns.

“I don’t want to go home,” she says.

Nicole doesn’t want her to go, either.

“Ya don’t have to,” she says with a shrug, “I’ll take ya anywhere”.

How awfully true that is.

Waverly smiles at her.

“I won’t bother you,” she says, “you look tired”.

Nicole is tired, her legs hurt and her forearms are sore and her eyes burn.

“Ya ain’t botherin’,” she says, and it is true, of course.

“Can we just…” Waverly starts, “stay here for a while?”

Nicole would stay anywhere with Waverly Earp, and it scares her to death. She nods.

“God,” Waverly sighs, “you have to stop being so nice to me”.

Nicole frowns.

“Why?” she asks, voice breaking.

“It makes me feel _terrible,”_ Waverly whines, “I was so awful with you when we were younger”.

Nicole laughs.

“Kids ain’t too smart, Miss Waverly,” she says, “it’s alright”.

“It’s not alright!” Waverly whines, voice higher, “you never even did anything!”

Nicole laughs even more.

“I did say ya boyfriend had a big ol’ head,” she says conspicuously.

Waverly laughs with her.

“He’s not my _boyfriend,_ ” she shoves her, playful and delicious, “and he does have a… slightly disproportionate cranium”.

Nicole laughs and laughs and laughs and the sound mixes with Waverly’s own laughter and it is an orchestra, really.

“Ya can’t say that about the cranium ya kissin’,” Nicole warns.

Waverly smiles at her, eyes like tiny crescent moons, and Nicole wishes for eternity for the very first time in her life.

She can hear the soft thudding of snow around them.

“He’s easy,” Waverly murmurs, “they’re all… easy”.

Shae was, too.

That usually doesn’t mean much of anything.

“It’s nice, ain’t it?” Nicole whispers back, “bein’ liked”.

Waverly closes her eyes, breathing in deeply.

“It’s…” she lets the air out, “it is”.

Nicole rests her head against the car seat before slowly craning her neck towards Waverly.

“You scared me so much, back then” Waverly says, “you’re just… you,” she sighs, “I don’t think I even know who I am, yet”.

“Ya figurin’ it out,” Nicole tells her, and she can smell jasmine and a tad bit of ginger.

Waverly shrugs, looking her in the eye, and Nicole is sure if she focuses enough, she will see the grass dancing with the wind.

“I hope I am,” she says, and it feels like a promise.

***

When Nicole walks her to the door of the Homestead, worried Waverly might slip on the fresh snow, Waverly blushes and kisses her cheek before walking inside.

It feels like she planted a seed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fun thing about writing teenagers is that they can be as dumb as you want and it still makes perfect sense.
> 
> as usual, thank you for the kindness.


	14. Chapter 14

18.

Nicole sits on the porch, a hot mug of black coffee in her hands, and she watches her garden dancing with the cutting breeze. She wonders if they’re cold.

She clicks her tongue at Timothy: his stems have started to wrap themselves around Gertrude, and she worries she might not withstand the lack of sun. Nicole is certain she will have to transplant Timothy eventually, and she examines the lawn, looking for an isolated spot for him.

She laughs a little. It’s like he’s being grounded.

She feels strange with the decision: it feels like she’s been fighting a losing battle with the stubborn dill, and to accept defeat and separation feels a little too tragic for her.

She worries he might get a little lonely.

***

The biting cold is a relief, really, and she feels the callouses in her hands are slowly disappearing as more and more time passes by without work. She hadn’t noticed how tired she was, how rough her hands were getting and how her muscles seemed to burn a little more than usual.

Nedley had, though, and she wonders if maybe he had something to do with the sudden lack of gardening work necessary around town.

As merciless as winter can be, it is a time for rest.

***

“What ya thinkin’ about?” Nedley asks, handing Nicole a still warm T-shirt he’s just ironed.

She starts to fold it.

“Nothin’,” she murmurs, carefully ensuring the lines are not crooked or irregular.

Nedley scoffs, a small trickle of sweat running down his forehead as he starts ironing one of his uniform shirts.

“That’s ya thinkin’ face,” he points out.

“Ain’t all my faces thinkin’ faces?” Nicole asks him with a smirk.

“I wish ya thought that much,” he says, laughing as Nicole scowls at him.

She returns her focus to straight lines and slick edges.

“Everythin’ okay in school?” Nedley tries, eyes cast downwards.

Nicole hums in response, nodding distractedly.

Every day she wakes up and she knows she has one less day to go until she never has to go to school again, and it feels like a victory.

“Ya friends?” he probes, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes.

“I’m fine, sir,” she tells him.

He nods.

***

She is lying, of course.

Nicole Haught is absolutely terrified.

She thinks about Waverly Earp every second of every day, and she misses her more than she ever missed anyone in her entire life. She rushes to school, waiting for the bell to ring and praying Waverly will walk by her on the hallways or sit down with her at lunch or smile at her from the very last bench up on the bleachers.

She feels like she is dying, but she refuses to do so, because she cannot leave this planet when Waverly Earp rests her small, soft hands on her knees every day as they eat their lunch, telling her about how her tomatoes are doing and what trouble Wynonna is getting herself into and making up impossible plans to celebrate her incoming graduation.

Nicole is terrified, because she’d die for Nedley and Wynonna and Doc and Xavier and Rosita, but she has been alive for Waverly Earp.

And it all makes sense, in a way, since she lies in bed at night and she knows, as well as she knows that the snow is a great insulator for the roots of her garden but it’s weight can harm their branches and stems, that she has lived her eighteen years of miserable and beautiful life so that Waverly Earp could call her at six in the morning on a Sunday to ask her why the leaves of Nicolette the cherry tomato were falling off.

And she smiles, too happy to hear her voice to care about how tired she still is, and she tells Waverly it is natural, but she could come over to check it out if she wanted her to.

And something tells her Waverly is not worried about Nicolette when she says Nicole should stop by later so they could have lunch together.

***

Nedley threatens to keep her out of her own garden for a month if she doesn’t invite Waverly over, moaning about how the poor girl probably never eats home-cooked meals and how skinny she is and how Nicole cannot leave an old man to have lunch by himself on a Sunday.

***

So Nicole drives the twenty five minute drive to the strange house in the middle of nowhere and Waverly Earp comes rushing out the door with the prettiest smile Nicole ever did see, wrapped in a faux fur coat a little too big for her tiny frame, hair up in the most adorable space buns and squealing as she hops inside the car.

Nicole’s heart is no longer inside her body, it is far, far away, and she worries she will never see it again.

There’s something in the back of her neck, but it is not uncomfortable warmth and heavy breathing, but a light, airy breeze which leaves every inch of skin it touches ticklish and fresh, like squeezing mint leaves between your fingers.

***

As she drives them back to her home, a little too aware Waverly is about to meet her garden while it is at it’s worst, shriveled and cold and most certainly not green, she listens to Waverly Earp sing along to truly awful songs playing on the radio and she realizes she has never been this scared, not when her father raised his fists at her, not when she tried to go in a train for the first time in her life, not when she lay her future on the front porch of a man she’d never met before and asked him to see something in her she could not yet see herself.

But it’s not the lonely kind of fear she’s become accustomed to, and maybe that’s even worse, but maybe it makes it all a little better.

***

Waverly says nothing as she slowly approaches Nicole’s garden, boots crunching against snow in time with Nicole’s heavy breathing. She simply stares, running the pads of her fingers against small, darkened leaves with reverence, slowly walking amongst the plants, curiously examining each of them with methodic care, bending down to compare leaves and stems and humming to herself as she does so.

She crosses the red sea, leaves allowing Waverly Earp to walk through them, and Nicole is sure she sees the stems parting, granting her passage.

Nicole wonders where her heart has gone to.

“It’s beautiful,” Waverly says, enveloped in dark green and fresh snow, and the contrast makes her glow, soft skin glimmering, reflecting green and life as the leaves twist themselves around her in a welcoming embrace.

“Yeah,” Nicole murmurs, but they are not talking about the same thing.

She sears the sight on the soft tissue of her brain.

If Gustav Klimt loved nature and not gold, Nicole is sure his portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I would have looked an awful lot like her new favorite memory.

***

“Waverly!” Nedley greets, abandoning the boiling pots and pans to shake her hand fiercely.

Waverly smiles.

“Thank you for inviting me, sir,” Waverly says.

It is only when they’re out of the sinfully smelling kitchen that Nicole opens her mouth.

“Sir, uh?” she quirks up her eyebrows, grinning as Waverly blushes.

“You’re rubbing off on me,” she complains before pointing upstairs, “where is your room?”

Nicole gestures for her to follow, inexplicably nervous with how many pieces of herself she’s giving away to the girl walking beside her.

She pushes her bedroom door open with little ceremony, shrugging before walking in and throwing herself on her bed.

She’s always so very casual, see.

Waverly stands by the doorway, looking around her with amazement.

Nicole is so very envious of her, too.

And then Waverly fixes her eyes on the board above Nicole’s bed, and Nicole remembers she’s written “Lunch (with Waverly)” on her schedule with a pink marker on every school day.

How terribly embarrassing it is to exist, generally speaking.

Waverly smirks knowingly at her, slowly walking inside her room and sitting down on the edge of her bed.

“I didn’t know I was so important,” she says, mischievous as she always is.

Nicole’s heart is so very fragile, see.

“I like organizin’ my days,” she says with a shrug, as if she hadn’t re-written Waverly’s name five times, until her handwriting was curvy and proper. Worthy.

Waverly’s eyes shine with something so profoundly artful Nicole fells the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“I’m part of your days, then?” she asks, and she knows the answer.

Nicole shrugs noncommittally.

If only that was all she was.

“Ya can’t come to my house ‘n make fun of me, ya know,” Nicole groans, “it ain’t polite”.

Waverly giggles.

“You and your _manners,”_ she says, and her tone betrays her adoration.

Nicole picks at a loose thread on her bed covers.

“I like your room,” Waverly says, “it’s very… you”.

Nicole never really thought much about it, and she looks around at the bare walls and the piles of landscaping magazines and gardening books strewn around the bedroom.

It is very her, she supposes.

Waverly gets up, moving over to the small collection of records Nicole had gathered through the years. She always loved how similar hers and Nedley’s taste in music were, and she cherishes the memories of her first year with him, sitting on the front porch and listening to Patsy Cline and saying nothing to each other.

“God, you really are a cowboy,” Waverly snorts, tracing the pads of her fingers on the spine of Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton and Orville Peck and the Fleet Foxes.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” Nicole argues, moving to stand beside Waverly and trying to decipher the different facial expressions she displays with each record.

“No,” Waverly hums, “it adds to your charm,” she says absent mindedly, settling on _Helplessness Blues._

Nicole clears her throat, hands a little shaky.

“I’m charmin’, then?” she says, trying her very best to sound cool.

Waverly looks up at her, smiling before winking with a devilish little grin.

God damn her to hell and Nicole will be damned if she wouldn’t follow.

“This seems sad,” Waverly says, showing her the record.

Nicole shrugs.

“It ain’t ya sticky songs, that’s for sure,” she retorts with a crooked smile. “Come,” she gestures, and Waverly giggles before following her downstairs.

Nicole sets up the record on Nedley’s old player.

She wonders what else she has left to give of herself. She feels like she’s given Waverly Earp her skin and her flesh and her muscles and her bones.

But she’d make herself whole again if Waverly wanted more.

 _Oh man what I used to be,_ sings Robin Pecknold, and Nicole smiles as Waverly settles down on the couch with evident concentration, eyes closed as she listens to a small piece of Nicole’s soul.

And what is our soul for, if not for sharing.

***

Every so often, Nicole comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth as she cranes her neck, searching for Waverly.

Waverly is always sitting on the same spot, soft fingers drumming against her own thigh as she stares out the window of Nicole’s home.

 _What makes me love you despite the reservations?_ Robin Pecknold asks.

And as Nicole Haught stands on the middle of her living room, the smell of fresh pepper and cherry tomatoes and orange peels swimming around her, she knows that her heart has flown away to perch itself on the shoulder of the prettiest girl she ever did see.

And as she watches Waverly listen to incantations and sad songs she wouldn’t have ever listened to if Nicole hadn’t lived for her, arms wrapped around her small little legs and radiant little face resting serenely against her own knees, Nicole knows with the same strength she knew she had to _leave,_ six years ago, that she is in love with Waverly Earp.

How terrifying it is to realize we’ve handed someone else the power to destroy us.

***

She staggers back to the kitchen, breathing heavily, stomach convulsing.

“Ya alright?” Nedley asks as he turns off the stove.

Nicole nods, throat too dry to speak.

***

She stares at her plate as Robin Pecknold begs his wide-eyed walker not to betray him. _I will wake one day,_ he promises.

_Wide-eyed leaver, always going._

Strangely, Nicole’s fuzzy brain registers that this is not what it thought love was.

Love had been Shae’s ease and comfort and normalcy.

Waverly Earp is not easy, her powerful thorns are nor comfortable, and what does normal even _mean_?

But Nicole ain’t ever sure about nothin’, but she’s sure there is no other explanation to the way her stomach twists inside out when Waverly looks up at her, mouth full with the food Nicole made for her, eyes glimmering with planets too distant and too complex for Nicole to even begin to understand.

There is no other explanation to the way she soaks in Waverly’s attention like she is the only creature capable of bringing Nicole to bloom.

***

“Thank you,” Waverly says as they go back to Nicole’s bedroom.

(Waverly had almost wrestled Nicole to the floor after Nicole got up to do the dishes, stealing the laundry detergent and claiming it was her job since she hadn’t cooked. Nicole insisted she was a guest, but Waverly Earp is nothing if not steadfast).

“For lettin’ ya do ‘em dishes?” Nicole asks, sitting down with her back against the bedframe.

To her eternal damnation and infinite horror, Waverly Earp lays down on her bed, scooting over until her head rests on Nicole’s lap.

“For having me, smartass,” Waverly retorts with a smile.

Nicole gasps.

“Did ya curse, Miss Waverly Earp?” she asks.

Waverly giggles.

“’N here I was thinkin’ ya was a lady,” Nicole sighs, shaking her head.

Making Waverly laugh was very much one of Nicole’s favorite things to do.

“I’m serious,” Waverly says when her giggling subsides, “thanks for… everything”.

Nicole opens her mouth.

“Do _not_ say it ain’t nothin’,” Waverly mimics, drawling her speech in a truly terrible rendition of Nicole’s accent.

“That ain’t how I talk!” Nicole groans.

“It’s exactly how you talk, Nicole,” Waverly giggles.

Her skin is so very warm against Nicole’s jeans.

“Thank you,” Waverly repeats once more, “you have no idea what you’ve done for me”.

And here Nicole was, thinking she knew anythin’ about love or about life or about anythin’ at all.

***

When Nicole drives Waverly home, she feels a mixture of sorrow and relief.

When they say goodbye, she’s a little dazed with how strong the urge to press her lips against Waverly’s is. How familiar it is, really. Her lips part with their usual gasp, stinging painfully with the memory of something that never happened.

That might never happen.

She feels empty as she returns home, no singing along and no terrible songs, but she feels like she has space to breathe again.

She’s in love with Waverly Earp, she tells herself, and the knowledge is not a surprise, really. It’d always been there, and now that she sees it, she isn’t sure if she knows who she is without loving her.

She does hope she doesn’t have to find out.

***

And things are the same as they were.

Nicole searches for Waverly wherever she is, and she smiles when she sees her. They sit together as they eat lunch, and Waverly’s hand over her knee is an anchor and a grave as much as it ever was.

She was always a lil’ slow, she knows.

***

“So, what are we doing for you graduation?” Waverly asks, clapping her hands together in excitement as Nicole walks her to her classroom.

Nicole smiles fondly.

“Nothin’,” she says.

“Oh, quit it!” Waverly whines, “you’re no fun”.

“Waverly,” Nicole sighs, “I have six friends,” she deadpans.

Waverly laughs.

“Well, ask your _six friends_ to come!”

Then she stops walking.

“You have five friends,” she supplies.

Nicole raises her eyebrows.

“Ya, ya sister, Rosita, Xavier, Doc ‘n Shae,” she counts them on her fingers.

Waverly stares at her, face blank.

“Shae,” she echoes, “sure,” she retorts, turning around and walking away.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“What does that mean, Missus?” she asks Waverly, jogging after her.

“Nothing,” Waverly lies.

Nicole scoffs.

“Ya jealous,” she tells Waverly matter-of-factly.

She ain’t _that_ slow.

Waverly turns around, overly offended. She scoffs.

“I’m not _jealous,”_ she says, “I just don’t get why you keep saying she’s your friend if you two don’t even talk anymore”.

“Says who?” Nicole asks.

Waverly freezes, and Nicole worries she might’ve broken her.

Then she reboots.

“Are you two back together?” she asks.

Nicole scoffs.

“What?” she asks a little too loudly, looking around as a few students stare at them, “we ain’t nothin’ but _friends,_ Waverly”.

Nicole hates how much she enjoys Waverly’s jealously. She was never one for false hope.

Waverly nods before going inside her classroom.

***

“Ya still mad I have other friends?” she asks Waverly the next day, sitting down beside her in the nearly empty library.

She hates how tired she is. She hates how she kept replaying Waverly’s face in her mind all night, praying to god it could mean something.

To her credit, Waverly looks exhausted, too.

She huffs indignantly.

“I’m not mad at anything,” she lies.

“That face ya makin’ just ya normal face?” Nicole asks with a small smile.

“Was born with it,” Waverly grumbles, flipping the pages of a big book with exaggerated interest.

Nicole snorts.

“Shae’s leavin’, ya know?” she tells Waverly, “after graduation”.

Waverly perks up at that.

“Is that so?” she asks as casually as she can muster.

“Med school. UBC,” Nicole says, and she can’t help the pride in her voice.

Shae was always so unbelievably smart.

“Good for her,” Waverly says.

“Oh, come on, ya big baby,” Nicole whines, covering the books pages with her hands, “ya know I only have eyes for ya” she says, like an idiot.

Why the _hell_ did she say that.

It gets Waverly’s attention, at least.

“Well, I am awfully pretty,” Waverly replies with a grin.

Nicole would very much like to kiss that stupid look off her stupid face.

“My friends probably wouldn’t mind coming,” Waverly says, “the girls and all”.

Nicole snorts.

“And Champ,” she adds with a roll of her eyes.

Waverly shoves her playfully.

“Who’s jealous now?” she asks.

Nicole tries to keep her hands from shaking too badly.

“They ain’t my friends, Miss,” Nicole shrugs. “’N I’d like to see Shae before she leaves, is all”.

Waverly smiles a knowing smile.

“I’ll talk to Wynonna, then,” she smirks, “and we’ll throw a party for your _six_ friends”.

Nicole rolls her eyes, but smiles anyways.

***

It is funny, how different things are.

She wonders who she’d have been if she’d become friends with Waverly Earp sooner. If she’d be meaner, less honest.

She knows Waverly enough to understand her flaws and limitations, and she still feels a strange itch on her skin whenever she’s with Waverly’s friends. Waverly is different around them. Not mean as she once was, not ice cold and deadly, but different.

Nicole wonders if the Waverly Earp who offers to come and help her with transplanting Timothy from his spot amongst his siblings to a stretch of soil Nicole had taken three days to remove the frozen grass from is the same Waverly Earp who’s known by her four tomato plants.

She wonders if she sees what they see, if she hears what they hear.

It is a futile exercise, of course.

But being in love with Waverly Earp feels like a futile exercise, sometimes.

***

Not always, though.

It feels purposeful and abundant and savory as she shows Waverly how to properly use a shovel, just two weeks before her graduation. She laughs as Waverly tries again and again to get it inside the frozen earth, smirking at Waverly’s surprised gasp when she manages it with one swift little push.

It feels intimate, in a way, to unearth one of her friends with Waverly by her side, helping her with gentle hands as they carefully remove Timothy’s roots and carry him towards his new spot, Nicole laughing at Waverly’s overzealousness.

Waverly tells her to stop tugging on him so much, he’ll feel it, and Nicole feels a warmth inside her chest so pure and unmistakable she feels her knees give out under her body.

When they finish the work, Waverly whining about her dirty hands even as she smiles widely with glimmering eyes, Nicole supposes it can’t be too bad, being in love with your friend, if you get to keep them around.

When they sit down on Nicole’s living room to watch Nightmare on Elm Street, another piece of the puzzle that is Nicole’s soul, Waverly holds tightly onto her arm, cowering behind Nicole’s neck when things get a little too tense for her.

The heavenly feeling of Waverly Earp’s skin pressing against her own, soft breaths washing over her skin like a determinate tide is bittersweet.

***

When Nicole drops Waverly off at home, she can hear the howl of the wind as Waverly makes no move to climb out of Nedley’s truck.

She reaches inside her purse, pulling out a bag of gummy bears.

“Here,” Waverly says with a smile so soft Nicole feels like crying with desperation.

“What’s this for?” Nicole asks, voice thick and wet and foreign.

Waverly shrugs.

“For being my best friend, I guess,” she says.

And oh how it _hurts_ to be Waverly’s friend and how delectable it is to be her best _something._

What is love without a little contradiction, Nicole thinks to herself, unable to say anything as she watches Waverly take her hollow bones and soft feathers inside the strange little home with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hold on tight, cowboys, things are about to get rocky


	15. Chapter 15

18.

“Right after Chewbacca’s graduation, at my place,” Wynonna says, “be there or be square”.

Nicole squints.

“Ain’t it be _here_?” she asks, gesturing around her at the Homestead, in which they very much are.

“That doesn’t rhyme, beanstalk,” Wynonna rolls her eyes, handing Dolls a glass of water before settling down beside him on the porch.

Rosita snorts, legs stretched before her as she writes something down on a thick notebook.

Nicole sees Hs and Os and numbers, but she has no idea what they’re supposed to mean.

“Be here or be queer,” Rosita tries.

Nicole chuckles.

“I _am_ queer, Rosie,” she reminds her.

“Yeah, Rosita,” Wynonna adds, “don’t be homophobic”.

Rosita snorts.

“So am _I,_ idiots” she says, “but it rhymes”.

“Rhyming isn’t an excuse for homophobia,” Wynonna says with an exaggerated sigh. Xavier rolls his eyes with a snort.

“I am _bisexual,_ dumbass,” Rosita retorts, “stop saying I’m homophobic”.

Nicole laughs.

“Anyway,” she starts, “y’all ain’t have to come,” she tells her friends, shrugging before reaching for a bag of tobacco inside her jacket.

Doc scoffs.

“I would very much like to celebrate your freedom,” he says, fixing his hat to cover his eyes as he leans back on his chair, feet pushing on the old railing as it tips backwards.

Though it is still absurdly cold, spring is finally making its appearance, and the sun shines a little warmer.

“I can’t believe we’ve been gone for a year,” Rosita sighs, looking up from her science.

“We aren’t dead,” Xavier points out, a rare smile making an appearance as Wynonna places her hand on his thigh.

Rosita rolls her eyes.

“You know what I mean,” she says.

“Ya really ain’t leavin’?” Nicole asks no one in particular, expert hands rolling a cigarette with practiced ease.

“My horses would miss me too much,” Doc drawls out, hands resting on his chest as he basks in the new sun.

Rosita just shrugs, and it is as much of an answer as it could be.

“I barely have money to leave my house,” Wynonna complains, “let alone this asscrack of a town”.

Nicole considers it.

“I like Purgatory,” she says softly.

Xavier smiles.

“I do, too,” he says, looking over at Wynonna.

Nicole lights her cigarette.

The Earp family seems to be the soil in which their small family grows.

***

“Beer or whiskey?” Waverly asks, a notepad in her hands as she scribbles something down.

Nicole takes off in a sprint, dribbling the basketball in her hands until she’s close enough to dunk it, metal chains rattling as her feet slam back against the waxed floor of the school’s basketball court.

“Ain’t matter,” she answers, a little out of breath as she takes off after the ball.

When she looks back, Waverly Earp is no longer writing anything, eyes focused on Nicole with a weirdly familiar expression.

“What?” Nicole asks with a sly, foreign grin.

Waverly opens her mouth, then she closes it right back.

As a science experiment, Nicole holds onto the ball a little more firmly, muscles straining against soft skin.

The result of her experiment is quite conclusive.

“Ya stop ya droolin’,” she chuckles, throwing the ball towards Waverly.

Waverly shrieks, dropping her notepad and dodging it, though there is absolutely no way it would ever actually hit her.

“I’m just _thinking,”_ she corrects, leaning down to pick the pad up.

“Thinkin’ ‘bout how jacked I am?” Nicole asks casually, since she’s feeling a little cool and a little daring in her last Tuesday in High School.

Waverly rolls her eyes, clicking her tongue disapprovingly.

“You’re sounding just like Champ,” she says with a groan.

Nicole sometimes wishes she’d never learned how to talk. But she did, so she opens her god forsaken mouth.

“That mean ya wanna kiss me, too?” she says before her brain can process her own words.

Jesus Christ.

Waverly takes it in stride, as she so often does.

“I don’t know,” she says, tapping her fingers against her chin as if in deep thought, “your head isn’t that big”.

Nicole chuckles, her chest a mess of eagles and moths and butterflies, her skin on fire.

Love is such a messy thing.

“That’s ya type, then?” she asks, sitting down with Waverly on the same bench Wynonna had been sent to after Nicole got hit on the head by rogue basketballs so many lifetimes ago. “Big arms ‘n bigger head?”

Waverly laughs, open and luscious and blazing.

“Why, you interested?” she asks with a sinful wink.

Nicole swears she can see the little bird that is her heart ruffling his feathers from his spot on Waverly Earp’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” she pretends to think, “ain’t sure ya _my_ type”.

Waverly slaps her shoulder, cackling with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.

“I am _exactly_ your type, Nicole Haught,” she says with a little too much confidence.

“Ya sure?” Nicole asks, raising her eyebrow in defiance.

“I’m _everyone’s_ type,” Waverly says, and in Nicole’s world that is very true.

“Ya damn cocky’s watcha are,” Nicole retorts with a huff.

She sometimes wonders if her life would be easier if she hadn’t given Waverly her tomatoes, but she cannot picture it without a hollowness making it’s way inside her chest.

“Beer or whiskey?” Waverly asks again.

It was so very easy for the two of them to get lost in themselves.

“It ain’t matter, Waves,” Nicole shrugs.

Oh hell.

“Waves?” Waverly repeats, and there’s no malice and no mockery in her tone.

Nicole shrugs, as casual as she can muster.

Waverly smiles.

“I like you calling me that,” she says, soft as ever.

Nicole smiles at her, throwing in a wink just for the hell of it.

Waverly Earp blushes.

It was so very easy for the two of them to get lost in themselves.

***

“Shae,” she calls on her very last day of school, jogging after the retreating form of Shae Pressman.

Shae turns around with a smile, and Nicole can’t help one of her own.

“How ya doin’?” she asks, stopping as Shae leans against a locker.

Shae smirks.

“Better,” she confides, and Nicole loves how true she knows it is, “and you?”

Nicole shrugs, aloof.

“Ya doin’ somethin’ next week? After the ceremony?” she asks.

Shae nods.

“There’s a party at Huang’s place,” she says with a small smile, “why?”

Nicole shakes her head.

“I was gonna invite ya over to Wynonna’s, everyone’s gonna be there” she explains, “to say goodbye, I guess”.

Shae considers it.

“It’s not a goodbye, silly,” she says, “I’m not leaving till September”.

Nicole smiles at her. A promise.

“I’ll try to stop by. Haven’t seen them all in forever”.

The ease is back, Nicole notices, and the realization dissolves in her mouth like cotton candy.

The thing about being a teenager is that it is wonderful and terrible and painful.

The thing about being a teenager is that it passes.

***

She isn’t really excited when her day is over.

It doesn’t feel like the end of a marathon or the slaying of an enormous dragon, but like the crossing off of one of the things on her to-do list.

It’s meant to be, inevitable and incoming, and there is little more than relief and joy and a little sorrow with the knowledge she no longer has an excuse to see Waverly Earp every day.

She knocks on Lucado’s door, waiting for a moment before a muffled voice invites her in.

It’s strange, how familiar the office has become.

“Good day, ma’am,” she offers in greeting, slowly making her way inside.

Lucado looks up from a pile of papers, an almost imperceptible smile on her lips.

“Nicole,” she says with a solemn nod, “congratulations on your last day”.

Nicole smiles, standing awkwardly in front of the small oak desk. She rubs the back of her neck.

“I wanted to thank ya,” she says, “for everythin’ ya did”.

Lucado’s eyes glint with something Nicole has never seen before.

“There’s nothing to thank me for, Nicole”.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ain’t sure I’d be graduatin’ now if it wasn’t for ya,” she says, looking down at her feet.

Lucado lets out a breath.

“You’d do just as good,” she tells Nicole, “don’t sell yourself so short”.

There’s an awkward moment, then, when Lucado stares at Nicole as she tries to come up with anything else to say.

“You’ll do good out there,” Lucado promises her.

Nicole smiles with a curt nod.

“Thank ya, ma’am,” she says with as much depth as she can muster.

And then she’s out of the office, aware that is the last time she’s ever walking through that door.

***

She’s glad the sun finally decided to show itself again, melting away the snow and blessing her garden with bright green and the promise of a late flowering.

The knowledge that there are people in the world who see worth and potential in who she is is alien and delightful, like the first time Nicole tasted a mango. Nedley has believed in her since the first time he saw her, she knows, but she feels she’s been collecting that trust and belief ever since she arrived in Purgatory, from Lucado to Wynonna to Waverly Earp. She feels more like a human being, more like she exists and has a place in the world.

She’s always surprised with how deep her roots have gotten.

Nicole starts receiving calls again, old ladies and single men and entire families inviting her to their gardens, and she starts to take it a little more seriously, writing down dates and times and places in a small notebook.

She never liked to stay still, and she is nothing if not organized.

***

She wakes up early still, putting on her Sheriff’s hat and sipping on her coffee as she checks on her friends, paying special attention to Timothy, who now spreads and grows and takes over the nothingness around him like a wildfire, and she knows she’s not too bad at making decisions.

She clips stems and checks moisture and accompanies the slow but sure process of flowers of all shapes and all sizes showing themselves to her once more, and she’s glad to be who she is.

***

“Ya damn cheeky with ya graduation,” Nedley tells her as they eat dinner seasoned with fresh rosemary, “never seen ya smilin’ so much”.

(Nicole knows herself well enough to be sure it has less to do with never walking through school corridors again and more to do with the selfie Waverly sent her with Artemis this morning, caption reading “SHE HAS FLOWERS NOW!!!!”).

“I ain’t ever readin’ a damn book again in my damn life,” she tells Nedley seriously.

He smirks.

“Unless _Miss_ Waverly tells ya to,” he says.

Nicole chokes on the food in her mouth.

“She ain’t my _boss,_ ” she retorts weakly.

Nedley chuckles, sipping on a bottle of beer.

(Nicole sips on her own, which Nedley had handed her after claiming he was too old and too tired to pretend he gave a damn if she drank or not).

(She was no longer in school, after all. Who cares, she had told him. He’d grumbled his agreement).

“Ya real chummy with her,” he points out, no malice in his words.

“I ain’t chummy with no one, _sir”._

“Quit ya whinin’,” he grumbles at her, “I’m glad ya friends with her. She’s a nice girl”.

Nicole nods.

“She is,” she agrees.

She is so much more, too.

Nedley stares at her with a curious look.

“What?” she asks, surly and herself.

“Ya really like her, dontcha?” he asks with softness in his eyes.

She sighs.

“She’s my friend,” she says, “course I like her”.

Nedley smiles.

“Ya really like her,” he repeats, though it’s no longer a question.

Nicole groans, chest a little tight as it squeezes her expanding lungs.

“Yeah,” she sighs in defeat.

Nedley smiles at her, sympathetic as he always is.

“Quit ya pityin’,” she retorts, pointing her fork threateningly at him.

He laughs.

“I ain’t pitying no one,” he says, “and threatening a cop ain’t legal,” he says, pointing at the fork.

“Neither is givin’ beer to minors,” she retorts with an exaggerated swig of the bottle.

Nedley laughs, and it is one of Nicole’s favorite sounds.

“I ain’t raisin’ ya to be this damn insolent”.

Nicole smiles at him.

“Sir?” she asks, coy and wary.

Nedley is reminded of the wild little thing that lived with him years ago.

“Yeah?” he asks, quiet.

Nicole breathes in.

“Ya proud?” she asks, too quiet and too scared, “of me, I mean”.

Nedley huffs indignantly.

“Ya know what I can’t figure out?” he asks a question of his own.

Nicole shakes her head.

“How I managed to raise a kid so damn kind,” he tells her, “I ain’t too bad,” he shrugs, “but ya the best damn person in the world, chicken”.

Nicole smiles, something floating in her chest, light and warm and glowing.

“Ya have been a joy to raise,” he tells her, and his eyes are a little too watery for her liking, “I been proud ever since ya was sneakin’ off at night to steal food from my pantry ‘n eatin’ so many damn gummy bears I’d worry ya’d get sick”.

Nicole hates to admit that she’s proud of herself, too, but it is true.

When she was ten years old, she’d often think of herself as the infertile cement that surrounded her home, a bad omen of hollowed out potential, invasive and useless.

She looks out at her garden, and she doesn’t think it anymore.

***

A day before her ceremony, she’s sweating in her dirty sweatshirt as she waters Gertrude, Freddy and Samantha, tipping back her hat as she leans down, following a small worm as it emerges from the wet soil.

She smiles as she watches it making it’s way through her friends, and it’s nice that even though the worm is not aware of how helpful and necessary it is, it still digs and aerates and exists.

She hears footsteps behind her, standing up straight as she turns around to meet green more vivid and more beautiful.

“Waverly,” she greets in surprise, “ain’t ya in school?”

She’s suddenly very aware she’s barefoot, wearing dirty jeans and a dirtier sweatshirt and a very old hat.

Waverly smiles at her.

“Just left,” she says with a shrug.

They stare at each other, and the garden stares at them.

“What ya doin’ here?” Nicole asks finally, pushing hair off her eyes.

Waverly starts walking towards her.

“You know what I was thinking about for the last three days?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole shakes her head.

Waverly fishes her phone out of her pocket, tapping away before showing the screen to Nicole.

It shows a selfie Nicole had sent her a few days ago, eyes covered by her hat and hot mug of coffee pressed against her lips.

She’d sent it at five thirty, the morning after Waverly had complained about having to wake up early for school before sending a good night text. The caption read “Early bird gets the worm, Miss Waverly Earp”.

Nicole stares at it with confusion.

“Ya been thinkin’ ‘bout my selfie?” she asks finally, eyes narrowed.

“I’ve been thinking about your _hair,”_ Waverly corrects, showing her the picture again and pointing at red hair escaping from the old hat.

Nicole nods slowly.

“Uh,” she clears her throat, “okay?”

Waverly rolls her eyes with an exasperated sigh.

“It’s getting long, Nicole”.

Nicole holds onto a few strands, looking down at the shoulder length hair with puzzlement.

“Okay?” she tries again.

Waverly groans, walking off towards Nicole’s front door.

“Come on!”

It’s less an invitation and more a demand.

Nicole scurries after her, dropping the hose and wiping her hands on the old rag hanging from her back pocket.

Waverly walks inside with no reservations, saying nothing as she starts walking upstairs.

“What ya doin’?” Nicole asks.

Waverly spins around on the middle of the staircase.

“How do you like your hair?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole wonders if Waverly Earp is doing drugs.

“What?”

“How do you like your hair? At what length?” she presses, “shaved? Short? Long?”

Nicole is sure Waverly Earp is doing drugs.

“Why ya askin’ ‘bout my damn hair?”

Waverly gives her a terrifying look, which tells her to answer the question.

“Short?” Nicole tries, voice a little too whiny.

“How short?” Waverly asks, hands on her hips as she stares down at Nicole.

(Nicole very inappropriately thinks Waverly looks particularly delectable when she stares her down like this).

Nicole slowly brings her hand up to her jaw, gesturing the length.

“Here?”

Waverly turns back around, ascending the last steps.

Nicole follows her.

When they enter Nicole’s pristine bedroom, Waverly finally stops her tirade, sitting on the bed and placing her purse on the floor.

“Your ceremony’s tomorrow,” she reminds Nicole.

“I know, Waverly,” Nicole says with a roll of her eyes.

Waverly fakes a gasp.

“Am I no longer a lady?” she asks, hands clutching at her chest.

Nicole chuckles.

“Ya a lady ‘n my best friend”.

Waverly smiles at her with such joy and excitement and wonder, Nicole thinks of top hats and bunnies.

Nicole leans down, shushing her.

“Dontcha tell Wynonna, tho”.

Waverly laughs and laughs and laughs and Nicole is so very sure of what she’s been living for.

“Ya tellin’ me why ya here, now?”

“Can’t a _best friend_ visit her _best friend?_ ” Waverly asks with a smirk.

Nicole rolls her eyes. Waverly gets up, walking over to Nicole’s records.

“You need a haircut,” she says nonchalantly as she drags her fingers over them, blindly deciding on Patsy Cline’s self titled.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya sayin’ I look ugly?” she asks.

Waverly huffs.

“As if that’s even possible,” she says, so casually and so clearly Nicole hears hollow bones giving in to steady pressure, “but you have a ceremony tomorrow, and you’ve not even bothered to get a haircut!”

Nicole doesn’t always understand Waverly’s logic.

“Why do I need a haircut to pick up a stupid piece of paper?” she asks honestly.

“Because you don’t like your hair the way it is now!” Waverly says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

Nicole doesn’t, really, it scratches against her neck and feels too warm and makes her look too much like the lady she is not.

“’N ya came all the way here to tell me that?”

Waverly rolls her eyes with a sigh. She hands the record to Nicole, a silent request.

Nicole smiles, picking it up.

“I came all the way here to cut your hair so you won’t look at your graduation pictures in ten years and think, oh man, I wish someone’d cut my hair before this ceremony”.

Nicole laughs, gesturing for Waverly to follow her.

***

 _Just hopin’ you may be somewhere walkin’, after midnight, searchin’ for me,_ sings Patsy Cline as Nicole Haught places a chair in the middle of the lawn, telling Waverly to wait as she runs upstairs, searching for scissors and an old towel.

She walks outside, stopping in the middle of the lawn as she spots Waverly talking with Timothy.

“Your mom cares more about you all than about herself, you know,” Waverly tells him very seriously, “I think she cares about _anything_ more than she cares about herself”.

Nicole smiles, chest full with something indescribable.

“Ya bad mouthin’ me to my own child?” she asks Waverly, throwing the scissors and the towel over the chair.

Waverly looks startled, turning around quickly before grinning at Nicole.

“He’s my child, too,” she says with confidence, “you don’t just transplant someone else’s child”.

Nicole walks over to her, immersed in the sweetness of sharing life with Alectrona.

She takes off her hat, and then she places it on Waverly Earp’s head.

She truly has nothing else to offer to her, but she thinks she will stop only when she turns to dust.

Waverly smiles, golden and glittering and it tastes like fresh, raw basil on Nicole’s tongue.

“What an honor,” Waverly says, and Nicole knows she means it.

“Come on,” Nicole nods towards the chair, “make me real handsome”.

Waverly laughs, following her.

“That’s not very hard,” she says.

Nicole’s throat is arid and desolate.

She sits down, wrapping the towel around her shoulders, and she hands Waverly the scissors.

“Ya ever cut hair before?” she asks, almost an afterthought.

“Nope,” Waverly replies, clipping the scissors together like they’re bolt cutters.

Nicole realizes bein’ in love means bein’ real stupid.

 _So far away from lips so sweet and warm,_ Patsy Cline intones as Waverly Earp cheerfully starts to cut Nicole’s hair, no evident plan and no evident knowledge, and the worst part is that Nicole doesn’t even give a damn about her hair.

The only thing on her mind is Waverly Earp’s soft little hands, holding onto fiery red, caressing her scalp, brushing against her neck.

There is no heavy breathing, of course, only the feather-light touch of heavenly skin against her own.

***

“I should become a hairdresser,” Waverly says with a confident smirk, staring at Nicole as she brushes away the worryingly long strands of hair from her shoulders.

“Ya didn’t make me ugly, did ya?” she asks, standing up and picking up the chair before walking inside, Waverly smiling a cocky little smile as she follows her.

“You look _hot,_ ” she says, and Nicole melts against the honesty of her words.

She sets down the chair on the living room before walking up and towards the bathroom.

Waverly follow, giggling, and stares with wonder as Nicole takes herself in.

“Ya think I’m hot?” Nicole asks instead of commenting on her new haircut.

It looks… normal, to her. It’s cropped short and a little messy, just how she likes it. She looks like herself, but that’s not saying much.

“Do you like it?” Waverly nudges her, grinning maniacally.

Nicole nods absent-mindedly.

“Ya think I’m hot?” she asks again.

Waverly stares at her, eyes narrowed.

“It looks _good,_ Waves,” Nicole sighs, “ _thanks”._

Waverly grins, overly satisfied with herself.

“Ya think I’m _hot?”_ Nicole insists.

Waverly sighs, amusement evident as her lips quirk up.

“Get over yourself,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“Ya do, then?” Nicole asks again.

Her skin bubbles with excitement and heat and something else.

“God,” Waverly sighs, exasperated, “of course I do, have you seen yourself?”

Nicole has.

“Not through ya eyes,” she tells Waverly, looking her in the eye through the bathroom mirror.

Waverly’s face softens.

“Sweet talker,” she grumbles, blushing.

Nicole is sure this is what victory looks like.

She wonders what would happen if she turned around and kissed Waverly Earp.

That was the one part of herself she couldn’t wait to give her.

“You know what I love about you?” Waverly asks, uncharacteristically shy.

Nicole feels like the mirror has allowed her to see Waverly the way her tomatoes see her, bare and sensitive and who she is.

And she knows friends love and she knows a part of herself is not her entirety, but her skin tingles as she urges Waverly to go on.

“You never want anything back,” she says, “you barely even think of yourself. You just… help”.

Nicole thinks of worms.

She shrugs.

The thing about what Waverly Earp has said is that it is not entirely true. She loves Waverly, and she desperately wants Waverly to love her back. It is strange, wanting.

Nicole is not used to it.

***

When she drives Waverly home, the car is eerily quiet, nightfall embracing them in shadows, and Waverly does not sing along to any songs.

She wonders if she’s done something wrong.

When she stops in front of the Homestead, Waverly looks at her with something a little too close to grief.

She leans over to her, kissing her cheek and watering the seed which has already germinated and grown more than Waverly will ever know.

She opens the car door as the bird perched on her shoulder ruffles his feathers and lets out loud, shrill sounds.

“I don’t deserve you, Nicole,” Waverly says with a sad little smile.

She leaves before Nicole can tell her that she doesn’t give a damn about worth and she doesn’t give a damn what Waverly thinks she deserves and before she can ask what the hell that’s even supposed to mean.

Nicole knows, with the same certainty with which her cheek stings with the freshness of Waverly’s lips, that Waverly is trying to make a decision for her, then.

But Waverly had thought it best not to transplant Timothy, saying it’d kill him.

If there is one thing Nicole knows, it is that she knows how to choose what's best for herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the comments! you guys are sweet and lovely and i owe you my life.
> 
> in other news, i will be drunk in the middle of the street from friday all the way to tuesday because it's carnaval babey so you will have to endure a few days with no updates. just thought i'd let you guys know so you won't think i'm dead when i go missing for a little while.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no he's back!!!

18.

Nicole Haught was not built for graduation gowns.

She stares at herself in the mirror, jean-clad shins showing a little too much beneath the too-short gown, the deep blue fabric making the hair peeking out from under the stupid cap too bright and too different.

“I look _ridiculous,_ ” she groans.

Nedley snorts behind her, phone in hand as he takes a dozen pictures a second.

“Ya growin’ so damn fast,” he sniffs, hovering over her shoulder as he snaps more pictures.

Nicole shrugs him away with a grumble.

“If ya cry, I’m pretendin’ I ain’t ya kid,” she warns him, moving to pick up her phone before following him downstairs.

They’re an hour early, as they usually are, and she takes her time saying goodbye to her plants as Nedley fixes his tie in the living room mirror.

“Woud it hurt to wear somethin’ nice?” he asks her, jiggling his car keys as he walks towards his truck.

Nicole says her final goodbyes before jogging after him.

“I could wear pajamas ‘n they wouldn’t even _see_ it,” she tells him with a sigh.

He turns around, staring pointedly at her shins with a snicker before opening the car door.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

***

Nicole hadn’t asked her friends to come: she knows these ceremonies are boring and pointless, and she never liked being a bother. Having the Earps throw her a party afterwards was already too much, too self-indulgent and pompous for someone with only two pairs of shoes and only half the amount of money she needed to buy herself an old, second-hand truck.

(Lucado’s words resonate in the back of her mind, but Nicole supposes she isn’t selling herself short or long or whatever else. It’s just the truth).

So she’s pleasantly surprised and maybe a little overwhelmed when she enters the school’s gymnasium and almost instantly spots all her friends sitting in the third row of chairs, laughing and talking to each other as if being there for her was not a bother and was not pointless, and Nicole Haught knows she was never too good at having friends, but she’d never expect it to be so much about giving.

She stops, converse shoes squeaking against waxed wood, and she ignores Nedley’s belly slamming against her back as she watches Rosita, wearing a pink dress a little too short for school grounds, cackle at something Xavier’s said, slapping his broad shoulders and laughing even more as he instantly moves to fix his pressed shirt’s collar. She smiles, chest tight and heavy with love so pure it is water, as Wynonna Earp throws her right arm over Waverly Earp’s shoulder, a casual, thoughtless gesture, and Waverly rests her cheek against her hand for just a second before she looks up at John Henry, smiling as she helps him fix the hat Nicole knows he only wears on special occasions.

Nicole once read that wild fig trees can grow surprisingly deep and robust taproots, a testament to their capacity to withstand drought and struggle, a homage to a tree’s love for stability and certainty.

“Ya good, kid?” Nedley asks her, heavy hand resting against her shoulder as he leans down, worry clear in his voice.

“My friends are here,” she murmurs, eyes still focused on the back of Waverly Earp’s head, at the long, wavy locks held up by a pretty bow.

“’Course they are,” Nedley says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, sweaty hand slapping against her side as he shoves her forward.

Nicole has no time to tell him she isn’t ever sure about things when they come to love, because Waverly turns around right then, as if sensing her presence, and she smiles so wide and so true and so beautiful Nicole feels the bones in her legs crack and shake and threaten to give in, and then Waverly waves at her from across the court, the same way Nicole had done so many times through the years, and Nicole waves back, because how could she not.

And maybe Waverly is just that bit braver, because she gets up, taking off in a sprint towards Nicole, who barely has time to steel herself before a tiny little body is slamming against her own, and she hugs Waverly with all the strength she has, holding her up until her feet dangle in the air, and she laughs as Waverly squeezes her with an excited yelp.

She puts Waverly back down, and another part of her hits the waxed wood with her.

“Look at you!” Waverly grins, arms wide open as she takes in Nicole in the stupid gown, “you look great!”

Nicole laughs even more.

“I look real stupid,” she deadpans, though her cheeks hurt with how wide her smile is.

“Blue suits you,” Waverly says simply, hands running over the soft fabric of the graduation gown as if her sister hadn’t worn one just like it the year before.

Nicole is glad the cap covers the tips of her ears.

“You’re graduating!” Waverly squeals.

Nicole is so terribly doomed.

“I didn’t know y’all were comin’,” she says, eyes following Waverly’s soft hand as it plays with the strings of her clothes.

Waverly looks up at her, lips pursed.

“Of course we’d come,” she says, rolling her eyes as if the mere thought of Nicole ever being a bother was absurd.

Nedley clears his throat beside them, and Nicole groans in embarrassment as Waverly giggles, hugging him tightly with that same strange, mild comfort Nicole never understood.

“Don’t she look cute?” Nedley asks Waverly with a wink, and Nicole wishes she was dead and buried.

Waverly pretends to think for a second.

“I guess,” she replies with a grin, winking at Nicole.

And of course she reaches for Nicole’s hand, skin impossibly soft and hand warm and inviting, and she tugs Nicole towards their friends, unaware the mere touch of her skin is the best thing Nicole has ever felt.

“Nicole,” Doc smiles, tipping his hat in greeting as he pulls her into a quick, unusual hug. “Congratulations”.

Nicole smiles at him, laughing as Rosita pulls her into a hug so tight she cannot breathe, kissing her cheeks over and over again.

“I can’t believe you’re graduating!” she yelps, eyes glimmering with excitement.

Nicole is so very glad she has friends.

Xavier hugs her, curt and professional and very him, and she is surprised when her moves her cap back before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Good one, Haught,” he says simply.

She smiles at him, nodding.

And then she stares at Wynonna, who stares back at her with aloofness so affected it is almost funny.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Come here, Earp,” she gestures, embracing the girl with the raven hair and the icy blue eyes, and she’s pretty sure it is the first time they’ve hugged.

It is nice, strong and stable and new.

“I’m proud of you, tampon top,” Wynonna whispers into her ear.

Nicole’s eyes sting with unshed tears, and she’s eternally glad Wynonna refuses to use her name, as the stupid nickname is the only thing that keeps her from crying.

Wynonna would never let her live that down.

“Thank you,” she says when they step back and silently promise to never, ever talk about this again, “all of y’all”.

It is all she can say, but she supposes she does not need to say anything more.

***

As she’s sat on the uncomfortable chair atop the small stage, looking down ever so often to find Waverly’s eyes, the sea of dew and moss so familiar by now it feels like home, she realizes she is understood.

Her friends understand her, though she never wanted them or anyone else to. They know what she needs and what she likes and how she loves, and that’s more than she could ever ask for.

It is scary and it is uncomfortable, being known, but Nicole knows, as she smiles at Randy Nedley, cheeks already streaked with tears though she hasn’t even picked up her diploma yet, that it is inevitable, and sometimes, it is as sweet as sugar cane.

***

When Lucado hands her her stupid piece of paper, Nicole smiles, and the principal smiles back.

When a teacher gestures towards the mic, telling her she can say something if she’d like, she freezes, staring at the sea of people who are watching her make a fool of herself on stage.

When Shae smiles at her from the line of graduates with ease and familiarity, Nicole snorts before slowly bending down, awkwardly leaning until she’s close enough to the mic.

“Yee haw,” she says solemnly.

She hears laughter as she walks down the steps of the stage.

W _ould ya look at that, Nicole Haught crackin’ ‘em jokes._

_***_

When the boredom is over as she’s allowed to take off her stupid hat, she searches for nice, shiny black hair.

“Hey,” she smiles at Shae, hand smoothing over her own hair.

Shae turns around with a smile of her own.

“Hey, you,” she grins, “I can’t believe you said that,” she comments, laughing.

Nicole shrugs with a sheepish smile.

“Still going to Huang’s?” Nicole, asks, though she knows the answer.

Shae shrugs.

“I did get around to talking to them,” she says, pointing over to where Wynonna seems to be in a very serious conversation with Doc. Nicole is sure it has something to do with horses.

(Waverly Earp stares at them, open and obvious and glaring, and Nicole likes it).

“That’s alright,” Nicole shrugs, “I just wanted to congratulate ya”.

Shae smiles, nodding.

“And to thank ya, I guess”.

Shae snorts.

“There’s no need to thank me for anything,” she says solemnly.

Nicole shrugs.

“We both know that ain’t true”.

Shae stares at her, smiling a strange smile. She raises her hand, resting familiar and unpassionate skin against Nicole’s cheek.

And then she speaks.

“You’re in love,” she says.

It is not a question.

Nicole casts her eyes downward, a little embarrassed, and her cheeks heat up under Shae’s palm.

“You couldn’t stop looking over at her,” Shae adds, and there’s a hint of venom in her voice, but Nicole doesn’t think it is intentional.

“I’m sorry,” she says simply.

She is, in a way.

Shae shrugs.

“It’s not your fault”.

It feels like it is.

Shae’s hand is gone, and Nicole feels relief as the cool air caresses her cheek.

“She’s going to break your heart, you know,” she says simply, and Nicole thinks it’s a little ugly, the way she says it like that is a good thing.

Nicole did break Shae’s heart, so maybe she deserves it.

She isn’t sure there’s anything she can say to that, but she doesn’t have to think for long.

Waverly Earp’s hand, unfamiliar and passionate against Nicole’s own relieves her from the pain that is to stare at stale love, tugging quietly.

“Wynonna’s getting antsy without whiskey,” she says, and she does not greet Shae.

Nicole briefly registers that there is something going on between the two girls, something ugly and unknown, and she knows both of them are not proud of whatever it is.

She wonders if Waverly would ever tell her.

“Uh,” she clears her throat, “bye, Shae”.

Shae stares at her curiously before pulling her into a hug.

Nicole isn’t sure it comes from love.

“Take care, yeah?” she says, and there is honesty in her voice.

And then she’s gone, walking up to a group of friends Nicole never liked, and Waverly is tugging on her hand with a little too much enthusiasm, and Christ, girls are complicated.

***

She says goodbye to Nedley, repeating for the third time that no, no one is driving while drunk, yes, there is a place for them all to sleep at the Homestead, no, she will not use any illegal substances, yes, she knows he is a cop, no, she does not promise she won’t get too drunk, and then he leaves, eyes still a little red with the embarrassing amount of crying he did.

Nicole loves him so much it hurts, sometimes.

***

Wynonna forgot to buy more booze, as Waverly tells them with a terrifying glare, so she hands Nicole her car keys with a very graphic threat, telling her to go home with Waverly as her and the rest of their friends go over to Mr. Zamo’s shop to buy beer, since it is her party after all.

(Mr. Zamo was fully aware they were not actually supposed to be drinking yet, but he made it very clear he didn’t care when, on the first time Wynonna tried to buy cheap vodka from him at sixteen, with a fake id which said she was thirty three, he just laughed and said she had a great skin care routine before handing it back).

So she gets inside Wynonna’s car, which smells of suspicious smoke, and Waverly Earp gets on the passenger seat, quiet and a little distraught.

Nicole looks over at her as she picks on her nails, starting the car.

“Ya good?” she asks quietly, snorting as Wynonna makes the sign of the cross as she watches her drive the car off the parking space before getting in Doc’s corvette.

Waverly hums.

“Didn’t know ya ‘n Shae had a fight,” she says, cautious as she drives off the parking lot.

Waverly scoffs.

“We didn’t have a fight,” she replies.

Nicole nods.

“Alright,” she murmurs.

She doesn’t like Waverly’s silence, and she doesn’t like the way she picks at her nails with little care.

“Ya want me to turn on the radio?” she tries.

Waverly sighs.

“Can you stop it?” she groans.

“Stop what?” Nicole asks her, genuinely confused.

“Trying to… to cheer me up!”

Nicole looks back at perfect lips and tempestuous eyes.

“Ya was cheered up half an hour ago!” she replies, exasperated.

Waverly lets out a long, drawn out breath.

“What did she tell you?” she asks, looking down at her own hands.

“Shae?” Nicole asks.

Waverly hums.

“Nothing,” she lies, and it tastes like the four-dollar cigarettes she used to smoke.

Something tells Nicole Waverly doesn’t believe her.

“She always hated me, you know?” she says after a moment, eyes cast downward.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Nicole replies.

Waverly scoffs.

“She doesn’t _like_ me, either,” she says.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“’N ya all gloomy ‘cause my ex ain’t fond of ya?” she asks with acidic disdain.

She feels so very tired, sometimes.

“I’m not gloomy,” Waverly retorts, “I’m just… unsettled”.

Nicole hates that she laughs at Waverly’s choice of words.

Nicole loves that Waverly snorts at her laughter.

“Don’t ya ruin my party ‘cause of ya jealously, Miss Waverly,” she warns, and it is too honest to pass off as playful.

“I’m not _jealous,”_ Waverly groans, and she’s smiling again, the sun still not quite warm but _there_ as it heats up Nicole’s hands on the steering wheel.

They’re silent for a moment, though it is no longer oppressive.

It is only when Nicole spots the white letterbox from afar that Waverly speaks again.

“I’m really proud, you know?” she says, and the words are sweet jasmine in the late afternoon breeze.

“’Cause I graduated?” Nicole asks, because she knows it is not quite about that.

Waverly smiles softly as Nicole turns in their driveway.

“That, too,” she says.

Nicole doesn’t have the courage to ask what else Waverly Earp is proud of.

***

Nicole stares at the ceiling, sighing deeply as she feels her entire body spinning around and around in the Earp living room. She wills her mind to quit it, holding onto the dirty carpet as an attempt to ground herself, but she still feels like she is on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

She was most certainly drunk.

“I’m going to die,” she murmurs.

Wynonna Earp cackles from her spot on the sofa, still absurdly sober though she definitely drank more than Nicole and Rosita put together.

“Die, then,” Wynonna advises, “it’s your party”.

Nicole isn’t sure how the two connect.

She looks over at Rosita, whose feet are propped up against Nicole’s calves.

“How the _fuck_ do you always have _limes?”_ Nicole asks her, staring with distress at the floating peel inside Rosita’s fifth glass of bourbon.

Wynonna laughs louder.

“I always have _what?_ ” Rosita asks her, squinting.

Waverly Earp snorts, sat with her legs crossed on the coffee table.

Nicole thinks that’s a terrible place to sit down.

“You always have fuckin’ limes!” Nicole slurs, pointing accusingly at the floating peel.

Rosita follows her finger, staring inside her glass.

She looks up, eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

Nicole laughs, loud and uncaring and so unusual, and she’s too drunk to give a damn to how weird the sound is.

“She’s _fancy,”_ Wynonna explains, and Nicole’s brain registers the hint of a slur to her words.

Not all is lost.

“So am I!” she replies, pointing at herself as she wills her body to sit up straight.

It does not obey, and she feels small, soft little hands pushing her up by her shoulders.

God damn Waverly Earp.

“You’re a fucking _cowboy,”_ Wynonna rolls her eyes, lifting up her feet as Dolls returns to his spot on the couch, smelling of Doc’s tobacco.

Doc staggers over to the reading chair, plopping down on it with a grunt.

“Ladies,” he mutters, eyes glassy, “I hate to say this… but I am drunk”.

Nicole snorts.

“Wynonna called me a cowboy,” she denounces, pleading at him.

He gasps.

“You’re a cowboy?” he asks her.

Damn idiot.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a cowboy,” comes Waverly Earp’s sweet voice.

The girl who’s now laying down in the coffee table with her head hanging from the side and mere inches away from Nicole’s own is so much more intoxicating than alcohol.

Nicole tries to ignore the smell of ginger.

“Yeah,” Rosita agrees solemnly, “it’s kinda hot”.

“Ya think I’m hot?” she asks Rosita, craning up her neck to stare at her with a grin.

Waverly huffs beside her.

***

It is only after they ingest copious amounts of pizza that Nicole stops feeling like she’s in a raft.

She walks outside, taking in the soft breeze of the early evening, and she smiles, bare feet over cold grass as she searches for a spot to sit down.

It is only when she’s rolling herself a cigarette that she hears the soft padding of feet behind her, and she does not have to look back to know who it is.

Waverly’s Earp presence is felt before it is seen, the first dip of your feet in the sea, unaware the water is too cold for comfort.

She sits down beside Nicole.

“Ya alright?” Nicole asks her.

“Yeah,” Waverly mutters, “less drunk”.

Nicole huffs her agreement.

Waverly’s eyes char her skin as she licks the ends of the rolling paper before reaching for her lighter.

“You like your party?” she asks, and there’s just the barest hint of fear in her voice.

Nicole smiles as she lights her cigarette.

“I love my party,” she assures her.

She knows she should not, but she craves the memory of Waverly’s lips too much, so she offers her the cigarette. She wills her hollow bones to steady themselves as Waverly leans down, pulling on it as it rests on Nicole’s fingers, and the way the tobacco is turned into amber and then into ash reminds Nicole of herself.

“You know,” Waverly starts, and then she chuckles. “Never mind”.

“What?” Nicole asks

Waverly looks up at her, lips pursed, and Nicole wonders if she was a little less sober she’d have the courage to lean down and kiss a god.

“You’re so blind, sometimes”.

Nicole frowns.

“What?”

Waverly smiles, and it is too fond for comfort.

“Did you know that Rosita likes you?” she asks.

Nicole scoffs.

“ _What?_ ”

Waverly laughs, but it is dry and raspy.

“It’s right there,” she says with a groan, “and you always look like you have no clue”.

Nicole shrugs.

“It ain’t matter, anyways,” she says, taking another pull of the cigarette. “We’re just friends”.

Waverly grins, and it is poison.

“Friends can kiss other friends”.

Sometimes, Nicole wonders if Waverly Earp is aware of how much power she has.

Sometimes, she wonders if she is aware that Nicole would play the most mournful music to bring her back from the dead, and she’d look back and dare to condemn them both to hell if only to make sure Waverly was still following.

“I don’t want to kiss her,” she shrugs.

Waverly snorts.

“I forgot you were a romantic”.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Ya come out here to tell me ya think Rosita has a crush on me?” she asks, putting out ambers on the cold grass.

“I came out here to sit with you,” she replies with a shrug.

Nicole wonders if the yearning she feels to be near Waverly, the burn on her skin which begs her to touch her and the pull in her ribs as they implore her to get just a few inches closer are not all unfamiliar to Alectrona herself.

“Miss me, did ya?” she asks with confidence she does not feel.

Waverly grins, bringing her index finger and her thumb closer and closer until there is but the eye of a needle between them.

“She’d be easy,” Waverly tells her.

There is only the soft song of distant leaves as they dance in the breeze and the ringing in Nicole’s ears as she fights the urge to run.

“I done easy,” she murmurs, “I don’t think I want it anymore”.

Waverly lets out a breath, and Nicole is sure the wind picks up it’s pace.

“Why not?” she asks.

Nicole knows the only good in her life came from a place of courage she never thought she had.

“’Cause Timothy is growing and he’s real happy in his new spot,” she shrugs, “’cause sometimes bein’ scared…”

Her lungs are tight and narrow as she takes in a breath.

“Sometimes bein’ scared means ya bein’ who ya need to be”.

Waverly looks her in the eye, and the planets shine with the light of long dead stars.

“I don’t know who I need to be,” she confesses, and Nicole’s heart burns with the desperation to take away the pain in her voice.

She stands up, wiping off the grass from her jeans before extending her hand to all that she is and all that she will be.

When Waverly is up, hand still holding tightly to Nicole’s own, she finds it in her to speak again.

“I promise I’ll be there when you figure it out”.

***

Doc and Rosita are shoved over to the living room with old blankets by a drunk Wynonna, who mutters something about sofa beds and creaking before pulling Xavier with her towards the staircase.

It is late, though Nicole is not sure what time it is, and Ward Earp has not made an appearance.

She feels dread settling in the pit of her stomach at the realization that there is only one last place for her to sleep.

She wonders if Nedley can come pick her up as Waverly motions for her to follow, walking upstairs with slow, calculated steps.

Waverly tells her something about showers and teeth before disappearing, eyes red with the mixture of tiredness and too much poison in her blood, and she leaves Nicole to her own devices in a place Nicole could turn into a shrine.

She settles for what she knows, leaning over the four tomato plants, which grow and flower with fierce intention by the bedroom window. She sticks her finger in soil, caressing leaves and examining stems, though it is purely out of habit.

She trusts Waverly to keep them growing.

She’s distracted by the small little green spheres and the bright yellow flowers, and she does not hear Waverly enter the room.

“They’re doing pretty well,” comes her voice, and Nicole almost falls over Nicolette.

(The name had been Waverly’s idea, of course).

“They are,” she agrees, trying to pretend nothing happened.

Waverly smiles, and Nicole tries to ignore the way her pajama shorts stop mid-thigh and the water droplets fall from her hair and roll down her neck.

“There’s a fresh towel on the bathroom sink,” Waverly tells her.

***

Nicole spends too much time in the shower, sighing in relief as the water flows around her with blessed newness, thankful for the space and the lonesomeness it carries.

She is not sure she has the strength to face Waverly Earp again, but she has no option, so she dries herself dutifully and she brushes her teeth and she groans when she realizes she’s brought an old adidas sweatshirt and checkered boxer shorts as an excuse for pajamas.

***

When she returns, she finds Waverly crouched over her small garden, whispering to green leaves with what can only be called love.

The seed planted in her cheek has deep, insistent roots, and it grows and digs it way through her body with little care for hubris.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

She does not think the conversation is supposed to be heard by others.

Waverly stands up straight, turning around with a strange smile before gesturing towards her bed, unusually sheepish.

Nicole tries to ignore the way every muscle in her body tenses at the proposal.

“Can I ask you a question?” Waverly Earp whispers as she fixes the blankets with unnecessary care.

“Sure,” Nicole says, though she wishes Waverly did not.

There’s a moment of balance, and then they’re back to being an unstoppable force and an unmovable object.

“Am I easy, Nicole?” Waverly asks her, and breaks her heart just a tiny bit more.

Nicole never did like lying.

She sighs, hands running over short red hair.

“Ya one of the hardest things I ever dealt with”.

Waverly looks down, soft hands holding tightly onto her pillow.

She sits down.

“I can’t be who you want me to be,” she says, and it is sorrow and longing.

Nicole doesn’t care for her bad decisions.

“I want ya to be who ya are,” she replies simply.

Waverly looks up, and in her eyes there is the distant promise of black holes holding onto light and pulling it in.

“Who I am isn’t good enough for you” Waverly whispers back.

Nicole huffs out a short laugh at the absurdity of the sun telling the leaves which grow with it’s light that it cannot promise them life.

“Can’t I decide on that?” she asks Waverly, and she feels like there’s a mirror between them again, and reality is subjective and impossible.

“It feels like you already did”.

Nicole is all too brave for her own good, sometimes, so she leans down as her heart begs to fly away, and she presses her forehead against Waverly Earp’s, and she feels warm breath washing over her face.

“I don’t want to break your heart,” Waverly whispers, and it hurts.

Nicole closes her eyes and revels on the infinite tenderness of being so close to religion.

“Then don’t”.

Time is nothing more than an idea as Nicole listens to Waverly Earp’s lungs expand and constrict, as she bathes in the air they exhale.

And there’s the ghost of lips, then, not far from her mouth, but it’s gone, all translucence and unreality and more wish than anything else.

And then time exists once again.

Waverly lies down without a word, and Nicole feels sand running between her fingers as she watches the small body settling beneath a mountain of pillows.

After an eternity, she lies down beside Waverly with care, avoiding her skin and her warmth and her presence, but then Waverly shifts, draping her arm over Nicole’s stomach and settling her head on her chest.

“What was that?” Nicole whispers into the darkness, and it is full of sorrow and relief.

Time goes on and on and Nicole is sure Waverly Earp will not answer, but then she does.

“A promise”.

***

Would you look at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the patience and the loveliness.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listened to whitney's light upon the lake while writing this one.  
> if ya interested.

18.

It is unbearably hot.

That’s the first thing Nicole’s brain registers as she slowly stretches her legs, brain still slow as she wakes up. She feels sticky, sighing in annoyance as she fumbles with the endless layers of blankets and pillows thrown over and around her.

Her sweaty hands touch something soft and warm and very much not a pillow.

There’s a small whine, then, and the bed dips and bounces as Waverly Earp groans something inaudible before turning around and pressing her face against Nicole’s chest.

God damn her.

Nicole realizes, then, that she is not home. Her head pounds with a light hangover, mouth dry and foul with the mixture of alcohol and smoke. She feels sweat gathering in the fabric of her sweatshirt, legs bent uncomfortably in the limited space of Waverly’s small bed, and her short hair sticks to the back of her neck.

Bur Waverly Earp lets out a small sigh of satisfaction as she buries her face deeper in the crook of Nicole’s skin, inhaling deeply, and the air smells of soil and ginger and jasmine.

Nicole is sure this is the best morning of her life.

***

She lies there, unmoving with the fear Waverly will decide to turn her back to her, and she replays the feeling of Waverly’s soft breath across her face, and it is no longer hot or sticky, and the bed is the perfect size to give her an excuse to pull Waverly just a little closer, right arm slightly numb with the weight of Waverly’s head.

She’s thirsty, mouth arid, but she cannot find it in herself to care.

Nicole isn’t sure how much time passes. Waverly has something to do with time, she thinks in wonder. She bends it to her will, stretching it and suppressing it with her presence.

She can hear the faint sounds of footsteps, muffled voices, and the light shining over four tomato plants tells her it is late, probably the latest she’s ever stayed in bed.

She cannot find it in herself to care.

She hears doors slamming, the far away sounds of engines, and there are no more footsteps and muffled voices, just the light breathing of Waverly Earp as she sleeps, snoring just the slightest bit every once in a while.

It’s impressive, really, how Nicole never gets bored and never gets tired and her thirst is never too much to handle.

***

“Hm,” Waverly grunts, rubbing her cheek against the fabric of Nicole’s sweatshirt and pulling countless blankets tightly around her small frame.

Nicole huffs out a laugh.

Waverly opens one eye, sleepy and lazy as she cranes her neck up to stare at Nicole.

“What’s funny?” she asks, voice thick and raspy with sleep.

Nicole feels her heart hammer away against her ribs. What a delicious sound.

“Ya real lazy,” she says quietly, and she’s eternally glad Waverly doesn’t leave her spot on her chest.

The girl grunts before wrapping her arm a little tighter around Nicole’s waist.

“’S nice,” she whispers.

Nicole smiles.

“It is,” she agrees.

***

Waverly drifts in and out of sleep, occasionally grumbling something unintelligible or sighing in satisfaction as she rubs her cheek against Nicole.

She’s so much like a kitten.

Nicole allows her lazy mind to picture endless mornings of this, of waking up smothered by blankets and pillows and Waverly, unbearably and deliciously warm. She allows herself, if only for a moment, to think of how she’d have to wake the girl up at least five times, how she’d kiss warm cheeks with reverence and she’d whisper good morning, telling her she had to get to work or to college or whatever Waverly decided to do with herself.

It is then, as she pictures a future with the sleeping girl beside her, that she realizes what she wants to do with her own.

She’s always been a lil’ slow, after all.

***

“I’m thirsty,” Waverly whines, and Nicole thinks she’s actually awake this time.

They do not let go of each other.

“Ya want me to get ya some water?” she asks softly.

Waverly lets out a long sigh.

“I don’t want to move,” she complains, face still buried against Nicole’s fragile skin.

Nicole is sure that if she pressed herself just a little bit more into it, strong, unyielding seeds would make their way out of her in search for their creator.

“How long have you been awake?” Waverly asks, index finger lazily turning around and around over the logo of Nicole’s sweatshirt.

It is so close to her chest.

“Ain’t sure,” she answers, “a few hours, I guess”.

Waverly gasps, sitting up so quickly Nicole has no time to register the loss of her warmth.

“Hours?” she repeats, eyes wide.

Nicole only nods, confused.

“And you haven’t eaten anything?” she presses.

Nicole shrugs.

“I think the boys took Wynonna and Rosie out for breakfast,” she muses, “but I ain’t sure how long it’s been”.

Waverly huffs, adorably annoyed, and then she throws the mountain of blankets off herself, small feet slamming against old carpet as she grumbles about Wynonna and being a bad friend and how hasn’t Nicole eaten anything yet?

Nicole figures she’s supposed to follow the tiny ball of rage as she leaves the bedroom, walking downstairs with terrifying fierceness.

Nicole hates how in love with her she is.

She enters the kitchen slowly, observing Waverly rifling around the fridge and the cupboards with almost manic determination.

“You have to eat!” she tells Nicole before she grabs two eggs with so much force Nicole isn’t sure why they didn’t explode in her hands.

Such an absurdly small body with such absurd strength.

“Okay,” she agrees, dutifully sitting down on one of the wooden chairs, hands clasped over the table as she watches Waverly scramble eggs with dangerous speed. “They ain’t done nothin’ to ya,” she tells Waverly.

The girl looks up with a glare.

Nicole gulps, casting her eyes downward and shutting the hell up.

“Wynonna’s such a… such an ass!” Waverly exclaims, “I can’t believe she just left you here!”

“She must’ve thought I was sleepin’,” Nicole tries, shoulders tense.

“Why didn’t you get _up_?” Waverly asks with uncanny frustration.

Nicole isn’t sure why it is so absurd that she hasn’t had breakfast, but she knows better, so she doesn’t argue.

“Didn’t wanna wake ya,” she says, and it’s only half true.

Waverly groans, throwing in bread slices in the toaster.

“Why do you have to be so nice all the time?” she asks, hands on her hips as she stands in front of a simmering frying pan.

Nicole shrugs.

“Why is everyone so mad at me for bein’ damn nice?” she retorts, “ain’t that what you’re supposed to be?”

Waverly considers the question.

“We’re envious, I suppose,” she says with a shrug.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya envy me ‘cause I’m nice?” she asks.

“I envy you because you’re nice on top of everything else,” Waverly answers, flipping the eggs with little grace, “it’s not fair for the rest of us”.

It’s funny, really, a goddess talking about fairness.

“Ya smart ‘n pretty ‘n nice,” Nicole tells her, “how fair is that?”

She hates the way Waverly’s cheeks redden, and she hates that she loves it, too.

“Flatterer,” she grumbles, turning off the stove before reaching for a plate.

She gets on the tips of her toes, but her fingers only graze against the side of the pile of white plates on the cupboard.

Nicole snorts.

“Need help, lil’ lady?” she asks, already up and walking around the table.

Waverly looks back at her with a frown.

“Don’t you _dare,_ Nicole Haught,” she threatens.

Nicole crosses her arms and watches as Waverly tries again and again with little success, managing only to push the plates further inside the cupboard.

She tries very hard not to snicker as Waverly moves back, but she lets out a chuckle as she very easily pulls two plates off the top of the pile.

“Shut up,” Waverly grumbles, pulling the plates from her hands.

Nicole raises her arms in surrender.

“Ain’t sayin’ nothin’, lil’ lady”.

Waverly kills her with her glare.

“Is there coffee?” Nicole asks quietly as she watches Waverly serve them toasts and scrambled eggs.

Waverly points at a cupboard, and Nicole easily finds a labeled can, grumbling as she tries to figure out how the Earp’s old coffee maker works.

Waverly snorts, pushing her away with wielding softness, and she shows Nicole how to make coffee in her home.

It is so intimate, Nicole thinks to herself, so casual and personal and right. It feels like an invitation, perhaps, a suggestion for her to come back. A suggestion for more coffee and more blankets and more toast.

Nicole tastes sugar cane.

They sit down facing each other, and Nicole ignores her hunger and her thirst and her every need as she watches Waverly Earp eating and sipping on the coffee they made together.

(Waverly’d added so much milk and so much sugar Nicole wouldn’t dare to call it coffee, honestly, but who is she to disagree with the bible).

“Quit staring, weirdo,” Waverly says, but she smiles and her eyes glimmer with explosions of oxygen and hydrogen.

Nicole doesn’t have it in her to blush, really.

“Ya real pretty,” she says instead, because she’s lost enough of herself to care about a few more pieces.

Waverly stops moving, fork midway up and mouth open. She blinks.

“I just got up,” she mutters after a moment, setting the fork back down.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ya real pretty,” she repeats, because who cares, really.

She’s graduated. She can do what she wants.

Waverly stares back at her, curious eyes drifting back and forth in search of a joke or a lie.

“Thanks,” she says finally.

Nicole sips on her coffee.

“Ya dad ain’t home yet,” she says after a while, and it’s a nudge, a hidden question.

Waverly shrugs.

“He’s out of town, I think,” she murmurs.

Nicole thinks of a memory.

“Can I ask ya something?” she asks, bringing up a piece of buttered toast to her mouth.

Waverly nods curtly, and there’s fear in her movement.

“Why ya ‘n Nedley ‘n Wynonna so chummy?” she asks with care.

Waverly shrugs. Nicole isn’t sure she’s going to answer.

“My dad used to be a cop,” she murmurs after a too long silence. “Worked with Nedley”.

Nicole’s eyes widen without her permission.

“Didn’t know that,” she replies.

“Long time ago,” Waverly shrugs, “I was six when he was suspended”.

Nicole steps on thin ice, and she hears it crack beneath her feet.

“Suspended?”

“He was… not a good cop,” Waverly says with bitterness, “corrupt, really. Nedley found out he’d been receiving money to hide evidence and cover for some… very bad people”.

Life is so very funny, sometimes.

“Oh”.

“He almost got arrested, too, but Nedley let him go. Didn’t want us to be alone,” Waverly chuckles, and it is hollow, “not sure it made much of a difference, though”.

Nicole sighs, reaching for Waverly’s hand.

It is unusually cold.

“Nedley said he was a bad man, once,” she says as a way of agreeing.

Waverly smiles, and it’s ice.

“He is”.

***

“Everyone alive?” Wynonna asks as she throws open Waverly Earp’s door.

It slams against the wall behind it, swinging right back.

Waverly glares at her as she waters her tomatoes, Nicole watching closely as she adds just a tad too much water.

“They ain’t fish,” she tells Waverly.

The girl glares at her, too.

“You should’ve taken us with you,” she complains as Wynonna plops down on her bed.

“You’re never up before nine, Waverly,” Wynonna retorts, rolling her eyes.

Nicole sears the information on her brain.

“Well, Nicole is!” she replies.

“It ain’t-”

“Shush!” Waverly tells her, “you’re the worst friend in the world, Wynonna”.

Nicole is embarrassingly into being shushed by Waverly Earp.

Wynonna doesn’t really look like she’s listening, phone in hand as she laughs at what is probably a terrible meme.

***

It is only when Nicole gets home that she allows herself to replay all that happened in her head, telling it all to her garden.

“We almost kissed, Timmy,” she tells Timothy as she clips a few stems to use for dinner.

He does not reply.

“She’s so confusing, ya know?” she sighs, “sometimes I’m sure she likes me, ‘n then she’s all weird again”.

Timothy sways in the wind, uncaring.

“She’s jealous of me, ain’t she? She’s always grumpy when I talk about Shae or Rosie or her friends tell me I’m a good gardener,” she groans, slowly walking up to Gertrude, who silently thanks Nicole for moving Timothy away from her.

“’N she’s always goin’ on about breakin’ my heart,” she runs her dirty hands over her face, “ain’t that silly? She don’t have to. I’d appreciate it if she didn’t,” she chuckles.

Gertrude doesn’t care, either.

“I’m real stupid, that’s what I am. If I was smart I’d tell her to go to hell ‘n quit her playin’”.

Nicole knows she does not have it in her to tell Waverly to go to hell, and something inside her craves Waverly Earp so much it does not care if her heart is torn off her chest in the process.

***

“You want some water?” asks Linda Hilton, carefully walking over to Nicole as she balances a large glass of water in her hands.

Nicole looks up, knees digging into fresh cut grass as she digs holes for the gardenias Mrs. Hilton had bought the day before.

“Please,” she nods, shoving her hat further down her head before reaching for the rag in her back pocket.

She wipes her hands, standing up with a groan as her knees protest. She thanks the freshman before downing the water in two gulps.

It is warm, now, and the smell of early flowering and fresh cut grass takes over the suburbs of Purgatory like a blessing. Nicole’s white shirt sticks to her back, and her old jeans cling uncomfortably to her thighs.

She likes this time of the year.

***

“Ya been workin’ real hard, uh?” Nedley asks her, sipping on a bottle of beer as he tries, and fails, to flip the large steak on the frying pan.

“It ain’t work like that, sir,” Nicole advises, sipping on her own beer as the insistent sun warms their kitchen.

She thinks the only person who sweats more than her is Randy Nedley.

“Careful with ya damn mustache,” she points at it, “ya gonna get ya damn hair all over our dinner”.

He laughs, shaking his head.

“Damn cheeky, ya gettin’,” he says, and he smiles too much for Nicole to think of it as a bad thing.

Kurt Ville’s voice enters the kitchen in whispers, low under the sound of boiling pasta and simmering oil, and Nicole loves the symphony.

“Sir?” she starts, leaning over him as she fishes out a piece of penne to check it’s softness.

(she hates overcooked pasta, but had learned on her first year in Purgatory that Nedley hated it _al dente_ , so she lied and told him she liked it overcooked as well and had to endure it ever since).

“Yeah?” he grumbles, wiping sweat from his forehead as he adds another steak to the pan.

“I think I know what I wanna do,” she tells him, “for work, I mean”.

He chuckles.

“Gardening?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

Nicole wonders just how transparent she is.

“How did ya know?” she grumbles, taking the boiling pan off the stove.

He laughs.

“Ya so damn clueless, sometimes,” he says with a grin, “’course ya was gonna be a damn gardener. It’s all ya care about”.

That is not necessarily true, but she ignores it.

“Why ya let me suffer ‘n figure it out on my own?” she complains, shoving him right in the middle of his ever growing belly.

(she really needs to stop buying so much ice cream).

He shrugs.

“That’s what kids do, chicken,” he says, using the tone he always uses when he thinks he’s bein’ real smart, “ya gotta figure things out yaself”.

“Real damn mean is what ya are,” she grumbles, “leave ya kid dyin’ tryin’ to figure out their life ‘n ya knew all along”.

He laughs, and Nicole can’t help but smile at the sound.

“Don’t be dramatic,” he shakes his head, “ya just graduated. Ain’t no rush”.

She hates it when he’s right.

(it is often).

“I’m proud,” he tells her after a moment, voice soft and fatherly and so much like home, “ain’t everyone brave enough to do what they love”.

She does not tell him she isn’t brave, not really, because if she truly was, she’d kiss Waverly Earp until she could no longer feel her own lips.

***

And maybe Waverly is not, either, because she drifts away, dust and sand on Nicole’s fingertips.

They see each other less and less, and Nicole’s heart aches so much she wonders if she might be dying, but she has to work and Waverly has to go to school and sometimes things just don’t work out, really.

***

On Waverly’s birthday, she throws no parties and invites no friends, and Nicole starts to feel worried.

She calls Wynonna, asking if Waverly is home, and though Wynonna isn’t home herself, she says she thinks so, yeah, she’s a little gloomy though, so be careful.

Nicole buys her the biggest, heaviest book she’s ever seen. It’s a pretty thing, hard covers and thick pages with too small letters going on and on about what Nicole _thinks_ are the sociological processes involved in ancient Sumerian.

Or something.

But it’s big and it looks like the ones Waverly has in her room, and she barely registers the amount of money she has to take away from the money she’s been saving for her truck to buy it.

Waverly is nothing if not worth it.

She buys her a cake, too, just for the hell of it.

***

She knocks and knocks and she’s worried Wynonna is dumber than what she thought because there is no one home, but then Waverly Earp emerges, wearing pajama pants and a pink T-shirt.

She yawns.

“Nicole,” she lets out, confusion evident in her face.

Nicole smiles at the pretty little thing in front of her.

“Seventeen, uh?” she asks with a grin, “happy birthday”.

Waverly blinks once, twice, before a smile creeps it’s way to her lips.

“You remembered,” she says.

“How could I forget?” Nicole says, and it’s so honest it scratches against her throat.

She moves over to the swing in the front porch, picking up the book first.

Waverly’s eyes widen in awe.

“You didn’t have to give me anything,” she says, smiling widely as she reaches for the book.

Top hats and bunnies and adoration.

Nicole shrugs, and her cheeks ache with her smile.

She waits for Waverly to make her way inside, leaving the door ajar, before she grabs the cake, following her. They walk upstairs, and when Waverly reaches the top, she looks back, condemning them both to hell and whatnot.

Her pretty little eyes widen even more, rainforests filled with life and shadow.

“A cake!” she squeals.

Nicole laughs.

“A cake,” she agrees.

“You didn’t have- Oh my god, Nicole!”

Waverly runs, strangely enough, throwing open her bedroom door and returning a second later, hands empty. She grabs the cake with wide eyes, running back inside her room once more, and again she returns, and she throws herself at Nicole, an embrace so strong and so pure Nicole feels her blood turn to river water.

“Thank you so much,” Waverly tells her, and her voice is thick with emotion.

Nicole prays to god she isn’t crying.

“It ain’t nothin’,” Nicole says, and she holds on tightly to her life.

Waverly Earp bends time, warping it until it’s nothing, and then she lets go.

“You have no idea how much this means to me,” she says.

Nicole knows she isn’t talking about the gifts.

***

“No parties, this year?” Nicole asks, cutting Waverly another slice of the cake.

Waverly shrugs with tiredness too heavy for her age.

“Wasn’t in the mood for parties,” she says.

Nicole sits back on her bed, legs crossed, and she hands her the cake.

Waverly smiles.

“Why not?” she asks, hoping she isn’t pushing it too far.

Waverly shrugs again.

“Just…” she looks around the room, searching for the answer, “I’ve got so much going on, you know? And I’m getting _old!_ Things are moving so fast and I can’t keep up and-”

Nicole grabs her hand.

“Hey,” she cuts her off, “breathe, yeah? Relax”.

Waverly closes her eyes, taking a deep breath.

“I can’t afford college,” Waverly says with a sad little smile, “and my friends are all going on and on about leaving Purgatory and doing great big things and my dad barely has enough money for _lunch!”_

Nicole knows all too well what that feels like.

“There’s the one here,” she tries.

Waverly groans.

“I know,” she says, defeated, “it’s all I’ve got, I guess. But it _sucks!”_

Nicole snorts.

“Ya the smartest person I know. It ain’t matter what college ya go to”.

Waverly looks up, smile so bright Nicole has to keep herself from closing her eyes.

“Thanks,” she says softly.

Nicole is sure, right then, that she will never be able to get over Waverly Earp.

“Any other complaints?” she asks with a grin.

Waverly laughs.

“I just… don’t want to grow up,” she says, looking down at her own hands as she picks on her nails.

Nicole wishes she had the courage to reach for them, to slowly pry her hands away, to kiss her knuckles.

They’re so very different, the both of them.

Rainforests and neat little gardens.

“Things are changing so much,” Waverly continues, “and it’s scary”.

Nicole nods.

“Change is good, sometimes,” she replies.

Waverly allows her lips to quirk up in a small smile.

“I guess,” she takes a deep breath, “but what if it isn’t, this time?”

Nicole considers the question.

“Ya know,” she starts, careful, “before I left my parents, I almost tried my dad’s drugs ‘cause I wanted to see what he felt”.

Waverly looks up, quiet and somber, and Nicole swallows dryly before handing her another piece of her soul.

“But I didn’t,” she shrugs, “’n I left, ‘cause I knew what I’d be if I stayed”.

Nicole watches as Waverly stares at her with too much wonder, admiration burning it’s way through Nicole’s skin.

“I guess I just…” she lets out a long, drawn out breath, “not knowin’ is good, ya know? ‘Cause what ya already know ain’t always too good. There’s… potential. Promise”.

Waverly smiles a shy little smile.

“Why are you so wise?” she asks.

“It comes with age, lil’ lady,” Nicole winks.

Waverly Earp laughs.

Nicole will be dead and buried before she allows the sweetest thing in the world to spend her birthday being scared of ghosts.

19.

On her own birthday, though she never celebrates it and Nedley never talks about it, only leaving her little gifts to tell her he remembers and he knows her and he loves her so very much, Nedley leaves no gifts before he tells her he is off to work, and she doesn’t mind it too much, but she minds it a little bit.

“Old man gettin’ senile,” she confides, and Timothy sways on the soft breeze, agreeing, “ain’t knowin’ my birthday no more”.

It aches just a little bit, but she supposes it is alright, and she grabs her things and walks the fifteen minute walk under the warm sun to Mr. Smith’s house, greeting him with a tight smile as he tells her good morning and asks her how she’s doing before directing her to his garden and letting her know what he needs before driving off to work.

***

When she walks back home, sweaty and covered in dirt, back twisting and turning with the weight of her tools, knees red and sore, she spots a second truck next to Nedley’s.

It is a pretty thing, the nice turquoise Nicole always pictured her own truck would be shining under the late afternoon sun. She cannot be sure, but she thinks it’s a 64 F-250, and she admires it for a second, wondering since when does Nedley have friends over, before leaving her tools in the old shed and walking inside.

***

There are two other oddities when she walks in: Nedley looks strangely excited and Waverly Earp is inside her home, chatting with him as they cook something together.

Nicole wonders what the signs of a brain aneurysm are.

“Howdy,” she greets carefully, walking into the kitchen as she takes off her hat.

They look back at her a little too suspiciously.

“Everythin’ alright?” she asks, stock still in the middle of the kitchen as she watches Nedley throwing in fresh basil on a gigantic pile of pasta with tomato sauce.

It’s suspicious that it is her favorite dish, too.

“Sure,” Waverly says a little too quickly.

Brain aneurysm. Certainly.

“What ya doin’ here?” she asks, terribly impolitely.

Nedley clicks his tongue.

“Don’t be rude, chicken,” he chastises, and Nicole’s cheeks burn at the way Waverly eyes widen gleefully at the nickname.

“Ya two bein’ real weird,” she says.

Waverly lets out a high little whine.

“I’m too _excited!_ ” she tells Nedley, and he laughs.

“Damn it,” he grumbles before reaching inside his back pocket.

He pulls out car keys.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“What?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

He throws them at her, and she barely manages to catch them as her brain scurries to process what it means.

“Real nice truck outside, uh?” Nedley smirks, and Waverly squeals the way she used to do when she was thirteen.

Nicole is pretty sure she is dead.

“Sir?” she asks, voice raspy.

“Happy birthday, chicken”.

***

Now, the thing about being gifted the car of your dreams by her favorite person in the entire world, as who she has decided is the love of her life squeals in excitement beside him, is that it is a little too much, and Nicole has a very weak heart.

***

She’s terribly embarrassed as a sob wrecks it’s way through her body, wet and gross and ridiculous.

“Ya damn bastard!” she whines at Nedley, and he laughs.

Waverly laughs, too, but Nicole decides to ignore the fact that the love of her life is watching her cry her sorry little eyes out.

“Ya damn- fuckin’ old _fool!”_ she keeps at it, digging her own grave a little deeper.

He moves forward, pulling her in an embrace so tight and so lovely and so much like family she cries harder, sobbing freely.

God damn Randy Nedley to hell.

“I was savin’ my money!” she tells him.

And he knows her too well, really.

“I know, ya idiot. I just… complemented it,” he says, winking at her. “Ya really should hide ya money better”.

Nicole hates him so very much.

***

She spends around two hours running around the truck, checking every detail, sitting on every seat, trying the steering wheel and a multitude of other very embarrassing things, but she is too happy to care.

***

Much later, when she is no longer crying and Nedley is no longer laughing at her and Waverly is no longer going on and on about how cute she is and how stupid it is to hide thousands of dollars in her sock drawer, she decides to go on her first drive.

***

The funny thing about love is that Nicole is more excited about the sight of Waverly Earp in the passenger seat of her car than she is about driving it for the first time.

“Where to?” she asks Waverly, mouth too dry and throat too raw.

Waverly smiles at her.

“Wherever you’ll take me”.

There’s meaning in her words, beyond Nicole’s grasp but brushing against the tips of her fingers.

***

When she parks the car by the edge of town, headlights on and illuminating the stretch of forest which spreads for miles and miles around Purgatory, she decides to be a little brave.

“I left you a gift, you know,” Waverly tells her with a small smile, “it’s not a car,” she chuckles, “but I think you’ll like it”.

“Left it?” Nicole asks, smiling still.

Sometimes life is so very beautiful.

“It’s in your room,” Waverly shrugs.

Silence envelops them, a mantle of peace.

Nicole’s heart beats it’s wings against her ribs, bones cracking and twisting with the strength of it’s determination.

“Gotta wait for the gift, then,” Nicole mutters, and hollow bones are all but ash.

Waverly turns to her, curiosity clear in her face.

Nicole stares right back.

“Just a little while,” she says, confused, pretty eyebrows furrowing.

Nicole takes a deep breath, and the air squeezes it’s way inside her constricted lungs, slow and clinging.

“Can I have one now?” she asks.

There’s a moment when they’re suspended, then, and Nicole watches as Waverly thinks and thinks and thinks, and then she understands, as she always does, eventually, and she stares up at Nicole with regret and vulnerability and something delicious and foreign.

“What gift do you want?” she asks, and her voice shakes.

Nicole revels in it.

“For ya to stop tryin’ to tell me what I want,” she whispers, “and to fulfill ya promise”.

The moments feels so long ago, now, distant and lost in time, but she knows Waverly understands her.

For a terrible second, she thinks Waverly will shake her head, tell her she doesn’t want her and doesn’t need her and will never, ever kiss her.

For a terrible second, her world is nothing but dust.

And then, Waverly Earp leans forward.

And they kiss.

Of course they do.

***

Waverly Earp tastes fresh and ripe and sweet against Nicole’s tongue. It’s not perfect, not really, because Nicole does not think deities and gods are meant to be perfect. They’re something above, something rightful in their wrongness.

It’s funny, really. There are no fireworks and the world doesn’t stop and nothing makes sense.

All there is is religion, right then, and Nicole worships with reverence and with every ounce of her soul, and she finally hands Waverly Earp the one piece of herself she wanted to give her for so very long, and it feels meant to be, inevitable and unavoidable.

An unstoppable force.

An immovable object.

When Nicole pulls away, she’s delighted and relieved and she is in love, because Waverly Earp follows her into hell, soft little hands resting on her cheek as she pulls her back against her lips, and time bends around them, the world nothing but the taste of Waverly Earp.

The world is so very beautiful, sometimes.


	18. Chapter 18

19.

Waverly Earp is a good kisser.

Nicole doesn’t have much experience, of course, and her only reference is Shae, but still.

Waverly Earp is a damn good kisser.

***

She’s not sure how much time has passed. All that she’s aware of is the insistent pounding between her legs and the low pull in her belly, demonic and sinful as it begs her to touch and take. All that she’s aware of if the fact that she can no longer feel her lips, as they merge with Waverly and become something else, something better.

Waverly pulls on the hairs in the back of her neck, insistent and whining as she holds them impossibly close, and an ugly part of Nicole is so terribly proud with the confirmation that she is desired by god.

It feels like purpose.

There are no sounds other than the wetness of tongue and lips and the moaning, which might come from herself or Waverly or both, she cannot be sure.

The forest watches them with rapt attention, swaying lightly as they hold onto each other, windows foggy as Nicole implores Waverly to melt into her, air thick as Waverly fulfills her every wish.

***

Nicole stares straight ahead, at the bright light of the headlights as they illuminate strong, thick bark, breathing in deeply.

She feels sweat slowly roll down her neck.

Waverly Earp chuckles, quietly at first, a low, grumbled sound of contained amusement.

And Nicole Haught laughs with her, because how can she not.

It is only when she has to fight for breath that she relents, resting against her car seat.

“Damn ya to hell,” she grumbles, sighing heavily as Waverly’s body still shakes with the force of her laughter.

Waverly smiles at her, all sweetness and deviousness, and Nicole can’t help but admire the plumpness of her lips, the redness and wetness and the call for her to come home.

“Don’t say that after making out with me!” Waverly exclaims, shoving Nicole with laughter too sweet to condemn her.

And then she leans forward, planting a strong peck on Nicole’s lips, nothing but determination and fierceness.

Nothing but who Nicole knows she is.

“Ya a good kisser,” Nicole tells her after she’s sure her voice will not shake too badly.

Waverly snorts.

“That was the best kiss of my life,” she confides.

Oh, how Nicole wishes Waverly’d stop loving her with actions and words.

“Better than Champ?” she asks, sly grin making it’s way to her lips.

Waverly rolls her eyes.

“Champ can go to hell, for all I care,” she says, smiling back with dirty playfulness.

***

She drives back, eventually, since Nedley probably thinks she’s wrecked her brand new car already, and she listens to Waverly Earp sing awful songs with her beautiful voice, and she decides she loves Waverly because she wants to.

She loves Waverly purposefully and fully, and she selfishly prays she can love her back.

***

When they get back home, Nicole tells Waverly to go right ahead, she’ll be in her room in a second.

Waverly shakes her head, saying she can wait, and the way she says it tells Nicole she already knows what she wants to do.

Nicole waits patiently as Waverly walks up to the front porch, resting her elbows against the handrail with a smile, and she waves, just for the hell of it.

Waverly Earp blows her a kiss.

Then, Nicole sits down beside Timothy. She figures he’s the one she should tell it to, first.

“Hey, Timmy,” she whispers, hands caressing his tiny leaves as she watches him beam at her, as if reflecting the light he’s absorbed through the day.

Such a funny thing to think, she muses.

“We kissed,” she whispers, voice tangling around itself with the intensity of her joy, “me ‘n Miss Waverly”.

He nods in acknowledgement, stems swaying.

“They didn’t forget, ya know?” she murmurs, “about my birthday, I mean. Surprised me, really. Ain’t ever had a surprise before, I don’t think”.

She chuckles at herself.

“I really love her, ya know?” she says, and it’s lower than the sound her garden makes as it sways in the breeze, “I ain’t even care if she loves me back. I just… I ain’t me if I ain’t lovin’ her”.

It hurts, to say that, and she feels bile rising in her throat.

She’s so very vulnerable, you see.

“I hope she does,” she says with a smile. “Nice kiss, it was. Damn nice kiss”.

With that, she gets up, wiping away grass as she walks over to the light of a thousand supernovas, smiling as the light smiles at her, unlocking the front door and inviting the sun to enter her home.

***

There is a cardboard box sat on her bed.

There are stickers all over it, rainbows and glittery flowers and leaves and vegetables.

“What’s this?” Nicole asks, running her long fingers over the stickers, analyzing them, one by one.

Waverly stands right behind her, body a furnace as it warms Nicole’s cold blood, every movement forcing them to come together and to separate again and again.

Nicole never knew she could dance.

“Your birthday gift”.

Nicole hums.

“Already had it, ya know,” she says with a sly smile, and she feels Waverly shift behind her.

“Your _real_ birthday gift,” she retorts, and Nicole doesn’t have to look back to know she’s trying very hard to look annoyed, but the right corner of her lip is quirked up and her eyebrows are comically furrowed.

“Ain’t sure ya can get me anythin’ better than that,” she says with a smirk.

Waverly huffs, moving up beside her and pulling the box closer towards them.

“Open it!” she groans, and she’s very clearly blushing.

Nicole smiles.

“Ain’t ya bossy,” she grumbles, searching for the easiest way to open the box without ruining it.

She quite likes the stickers, thank ya very much.

Waverly leaves her side, and it is cold, but then she returns, Nicole’s scissors in her hands, and there is something awfully intimate about the person you love knowing exactly where you keep your scissors and your pens and your pencils.

Nicole slices the thick layer of scotch tape with great care.

Waverly pulls the scissors from her hands with a small little squeal, excited and nervous as she watches Nicole open the box with care and reverence.

“Just open it!” she whines, huffing and puffing against Nicole’s shoulders, and Nicole snickers as she finally does as she is told.

And then she is not snickering, or laughing, or much of anything.

Piles of papers of all sizes stare back at her, serious and professional and strange.

She furrows her brow.

“What’s this?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Nicole feels rather than sees Waverly smile beside her, small, soft hands reaching inside the box and picking one of the pieces of paper up.

She hands the card to Nicole. It is neat and organized and really, quite beautiful.

 _Nicole Haught,_ it reads. _Gardening & Landscaping. _

It has Nicole’s contact information in it, too.

“What’s this?” she asks again, voice a little louder, but raspy and sharp as it claws it’s way out of her throat.

Waverly rests her hands on Nicole’s elbow, grounding her to the earth.

“That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?” she says, and it isn’t quite a question.

Nicole nods.

“You can’t have a business without business cards,” Waverly says, soft hands tugging against Nicole’s flannel shirt, and she’s smiling the cocky smile she always smiles when she knows she’s got the answer right.

“Business?” Nicole echoes, brain scurrying desperately against the current as it tries to process what she means.

“I made some posters and stickers, too,” Waverly shrugs, “for advertisement. There are even some bumper stickers in there!”.

Waverly points excitedly, hands moving inside the box as she shows Nicole the mountain of papers with her own name on them, fancy and serious and promising. She goes on about how Nicole can put up stickers on her new truck and put up the posters around town, and Nicole just kind of stares, really, hand holding onto the lone business card with so much force it crumples.

“Are you alright?” Waverly asks finally, green eyes moving to find coffee, curious and just a little worried. Nicole knows she’s wondering if she did not like the gift.

“Ya – Ya made me bumper stickers,” Nicole breathes, eyes narrowed as she stares at Waverly Earp.

Waverly giggles.

“I did,” she agrees.

“’N god damned… god damned business cards,” she continues, blinking slowly.

Waverly has no time to giggle, then, because Nicole leans down, lips finding their home as they press against hers, and she melts as Waverly instantly responds, tongue meeting her with desperation just as clear, and Nicole is delighted she can do this, now.

She was never very good with words.

***

Waverly may not be in love with her.

But there is love, clear and obvious, when someone knows what you love and what you dream of and what your future holds, and they tell you “go ahead, my darling, be the one you wish to be. I will be there with you”.

There is love in Waverly Earp gifting her the tokens of a promised future.

***

They kiss.

They kiss, again and again and again, and Nicole cares about nothing else as they do, and it is magical, really, being with someone able to turn the world around you into cardboard cutouts.

***

Nicole drives Waverly home, and they share a party sized bag of gummy bears as Waverly sings terrible songs.

She was never one for birthdays, really, but she’s sure she could change her mind, if Waverly Earp sat on the passenger seat of her car.

***

Wynonna whistles lowly as she takes in the Ford truck sitting in John Henry’s driveway.

Nicole smirks before climbing out of the car, converse shoes crushing gravel as she slowly makes her way up to her friends, sat on lawn chairs and surrounded by chips and beer bottles.

She likes this time of the year.

“Hey, Grand Theft Auto,” Wynonna greets, “who did you steal that baby from?”

Nicole can’t help the idiotic smile that takes over her face.

“Ain’t stealin’ no one,” she says, fist bumping Dolls and kissing the top of Rosita’s head before sitting down on the only empty chair, “it’s mine”.

Rosita gasps a delighted little gasp.

“Seriously?” she asks, “since when?”

“My birthday,” Nicole tells them.

They do not know when that is, and none of them asks.

“Did Robocop get you a _car?”_ Wynonna asks in disbelief.

Nicole snorts.

“He helped me, ‘s all,” she reaches for a beer, “had been savin’ money for a while”.

Doc nods appreciatively.

“It’s a damn pretty girl,” he says with a small smile.

Dolls hums in agreement.

“Ain’t she?” Nicole looks over at it, heart full and childlike in it’s glee.

She feels strangely complete.

“What’s with the… blue?” Dolls asks carefully.

“It’s _turquoise,”_ Rosita retorts with a roll of her eyes.

“What about it?” Nicole asks, sipping on her beer.

“It’s… cheerful”.

Wynonna snorts.

“Always wanted a truck in that color,” Nicole replies with a shrug, “it’s _classic”._

Doc snickers.

“It’s damn bright”.

Nicole shrugs.

“Waverly liked it,” she tells them.

“I like it, too,” Rosita adds, and it’s just a little too quick.

“It looks like a clown’s car,” Wynonna says, “so I guess it suits you”.

Nicole laughs. She’s learned to recognize when Wynonna is being nice.

“Waverly, uh?” she drawls with a smirk.

Nicole looks up, brow furrowed.

“You two are awfully close lately,” she continues.

Nicole snorts.

“Jealous, are ya?”

Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“Hardly, Haught sauce,” she scoffs, “I’m thinking about buying her a gift for her troubles”.

“Oh, quit it, Earp,” Dolls says, a small smirk on his face. Nicole notices he’s wearing a T-shirt with Purgatory’s Sheriff Department’s logo on it.

Would you look at that.

“Ya a cop already?” she asks him curiously.

He smiles.

“Not quite,” he says, beaming with pride. “Still a few months of training to go”.

He was always a good one, she thinks to herself.

“Ya take care of my old man, yeah?” she tells him with raised eyebrows.

He nods, curt and serious.

“I thought he’d be retired by now,” Wynonna muses.

Nicole snorts.

“And what, get Lonnie to be the Sheriff?” she asks.

Dolls laughs.

“Isn’t he a little… old, though? To be running around and all?” asks Rosita.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ain’t doin’ much of that, lately,” she says absentmindedly.

She watches Rosita explain what she’s been learning in community college and she watches Wynonna go on about her job as Pussy Willow’s new bouncer, which she is unfairly excited about, and Doc goes on about his god damned horses, and Dolls smiles at Wynonna with too much love, and she realizes she’s really quite satisfied with what she’s made of herself.

***

Wynonna’s new job means she sleeps until noon, which, in turn, means she doesn’t always pick up Waverly Earp at school.

Nicole likes that small piece of information.

***

It’s an unusually crisp morning as Nicole tightens the laces of her work boots, examining Tommy Craft’s lawn to figure out just what she can plant under the large shade of his fig tree.

She sweats still, pulling up the sleeves of her baseball T-shirt with little care, and then she goes back to clipping the large Japanese yews that surround his property.

When she’s done, she promises him she will be back the next day with his foamflower seedlings, and he smiles a handsome smile and shakes her hand, telling her thanks before she climbs into her truck and drives away.

It is only when she turns on the radio and hears the dreadful voice of Shawn Mendes that she realizes Waverly Earp is probably finishing up her last class of the day.

So she drives to one of her least favorite places in all of Purgatory, spine tingling with discomfort as the building stares her down, and she checks herself in the mirror, wiping away sweat and dirt from her forehead and fixing her hat on top of her head before she climbs down the parked truck, resting against it’s hood in what she hopes is a cool posture, arms crossed over her chest, and she waits for the bell to ring and for her shrine to reveal itself to her.

It takes only a couple of minutes, and then Waverly is climbing down the front steps of the building, chatting with a few girls Nicole knows by name and surname, pretty hair flowing with the breeze and slightly too short skirt following along, and Nicole swallows dryly before she manages to open her mouth.

“Hey, lil’ lady,” she says, loud over the chatter of teenagers, “fancy a ride?”

Waverly turns her pretty little head around, face immediately brightening as she spots the turquoise truck, and Nicole watches with relief and with love as Waverly throws out a half-hearted goodbye to her friends before almost running over to her.

Sometimes, Nicole spots the love she feels for Waverly as it returns to her, though she is not sure if it is only a reflection.

She hopes it is not.

“Hey!” Waverly greets, smiling still, and then her soft arms wrap around Nicole’s waist, and she doesn’t seem to care about the sweat and the dirt on her clothes.

They hug, impossibly tight.

“Only if you buy me a burger,” Waverly says with a wink, “I’m starving”.

Nicole does not tell her she’d buy her a house, she’d buy her a farm and a forest, she’d sell herself to make her happy.

She just smirks, thankful she still hadn’t had lunch, and she opens the door for Waverly before climbing in herself.

***

Something strange happens as Nicole drives out of the parking lot.

Instead of tuning in one of her hideous stations, Waverly asks Nicole if she has any of her music in the car.

Nicole gestures towards the glove compartment, and Waverly opens it slowly, pulling out a random cd case.

Orville Peck’s _Pony_ , Nicole notices with delight. Waverly examines the cover with curiosity before inserting the disk.

_You say go fast, I say hold on tight._

***

Nicole’s heart tightens and bursts as Waverly presses a button and the first song restarts, and then she does it one more time, and she feels a little bit like crying as she tentatively starts to sing along to Nicole’s songs with her pretty voice, high and heavenly.

It’s a religious experience, really, to give yourself over and to have it returned, only it’s been improved.

***

She drives a little slower than usual, and still sighs with disappointment when they arrive at Waverly’s favorite diner, but it is impossible to feel dejected as Waverly leans over to kiss her cheek with determination before hopping out of the car.

Nicole feels a little dazed as she follows her into the restaurant.

She pulls Waverly’s chair for her, and the girl giggles, blushing as she sits down.

Nicole sits in front of her, resting her chin on her hands as she watches Waverly take in the space with the same wonder she did the first time they went there together.

Life seems to be so full of wonder and magic, to her.

“Why did you pick me up?” Waverly asks with curiosity, dark planets, immersed in forests, staring with delight at Nicole as she takes off her hat.

Nicole shrugs.

“Was workin’ nearby,” she says, and it isn’t entirely true.

Waverly smiles.

“You’re a professional now,” she says with delight.

“Thanks to ya, Miss Waverly,” Nicole returns with a wink.

She loves the way Waverly’s skin turns to wax, melting at her words.

“I haven’t seen the posters,” Waverly says, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Nicole smiles even wider.

“Was wonderin’ if ya wanted to help me put ‘em up,” she says, and she’s not even finished before Waverly is squealing in delight.

Sometimes she’s so much like the little girl who barged into the school’s infirmary.

A terribly rude server interrupts them, and Nicole glares at the teenager as he smiles at Waverly.

They place the orders, and Nicole pointedly thanks the boy before he can smile at Waverly again.

He rolls his eyes, walking away.

Waverly snorts.

“What was that?” she asks with a smirk, “thought you were a fine gentleman”.

Nicole scoffs.

“Ain’t nothin’,” she retorts.

Waverly snickers, and there’s surface tension around them, something thick as it wraps around them and pulls them forward. Nicole feels the hairs on the back of her neck rise with electricity, and her heart beats a little too fast against her ribcage.

Waverly squirms, cheeks bright red.

“You want to put them up today?” she asks.

Nicole shrugs.

“If ya ain’t busy,” she says, “if ya are, I’ll drop ya off at home”.

Waverly smiles a devilish little smile.

“What if we put them up and then you drive me over to the edge of town and _then_ you drop me off at home?”

Nicole’s tongue scrapes against the roof of her mouth, and there’s tugging in her stomach.

Waverly smirks, joyous as Nicole feels her face heat up.

God damn her to hell.

The teenage boy brings her her coffee and Waverly’s lemonade, and she’s a little glad.

(she still wants to give him a nice kick to the shin, though).

She drinks the coffee without checking the temperature, effectively burning her tongue.

She splutters as Waverly laughs.

“Shut it,” she grumbles, “ya always embarrassing me”.

“Me?” Waverly feigns innocence, “I didn’t even do anything!”

“Ya goin’ on about… about ‘em stuff”.

God, Nicole wishes she’d burned her tongue right off.

Waverly cackles, throwing her head back to reveal her pretty little neck, and Nicole loves her so much she feels her spine twist.

“Stuff, is it?” Waverly asks with a smirk, “and I thought you were the _mature_ one”.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“I ain’t in school anymore, am I?” she retorts.

Waverly scoffs.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she continues, “maturity is about _experience”._

Nicole snorts as she sips on her slightly less scalding coffee.

“’N ya real damn experienced, ain’t ya?”

“You’d be surprised,” Waverly says, and there’s a hint of playfulness, but the way she says it makes Nicole a little fatigued, skin too tight around her muscles.

She thinks of Perry Crofte.

And Nicole’s starting to really like the teenage boy as he returns once again with their food.

God bless him.

“I liked that song,” Waverly says, less devilish as she chews on her burger.

Nicole thanks god.

“Orville Peck’s real nice,” she says with a nod, “queer, too”.

Waverly eyes widen just the slightest bit.

“Queer,” she tastes the word on her tongue, “gay, you mean?”

Nicole smiles a twisted smile.

“I guess,” she shrugs, “he’s gay, alright. I like the word, though”.

Waverly stares at her, fingers squeezing the burger.

“And you?” she asks quietly.

“What about me?”

“You’re… gay?”

Nicole snorts.

“Ya ain’t figured it out when I dated Shae for years?” she asks, voice light and soft, scared she’ll frighten her kitten.

Waverly blushes.

“You could…” she starts, “I don’t know. Be something else. You never… came out”.

Nicole shrugs.

“Came out to Nedley,” she says, “ain’t felt like I needed to come out to anyone else”.

Waverly stares at her with wonder and with fear.

“That must be nice,” she says with a little dread.

Nicole nods.

“I am,” Nicole says, “gay, I mean. Queer sounds like I’m a cowboy, though” she confides with a wink.

Waverly laughs, and there is no longer dread in it.

“A queer cowboy,” she says with a snicker, “sounds about right”.

Nicole only smiles for a while, watching a still blushing Waverly return to her meal.

“Ya scared?” she asks lightly. Barely a breath.

Waverly hears it, of course.

“I don’t… I don’t know, yet,” she says with a sigh, “what any of it means”.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ya don’t have to,” she says, ever the patient one.

The mature one, she supposes.

Waverly looks up at her, then, eyes filled with wonder and thankfulness and sorrow.

Such a strange mixture.

***

They spend the afternoon listening to Orville Peck and driving around Purgatory, Waverly holding onto the nice looking posters with pride as she points out the best spots to put them up, Nicole dutifully obeying to her every order though the girl seems to be completely unaware of how expensive gas is and how Willow Street was just next to the supermarket, they could’ve stopped by before going over to the other side of town and come right back.

She cannot find it in herself to care, though.

She cannot care about much of anything as she watches Waverly Earp paint over the posters with the glue as if she’s painting a portrait, not just gluing down a poster in the middle of an old town. She simply stands by, cleaning off the glue with the rag in her back pocket and laughing as Waverly huffs, groaning about the heat and complaining about how the glue isn’t working.

Nicole’s love feels like a living, breathing thing, laying over her chest with it’s warm, furry little body, all too heavy for the size of it’s ribcage.

***

When they’re done, it’s already dark and a little chilly, so Nicole asks Waverly if she wouldn’t like to go over to her place instead, have some dinner, maybe.

Waverly stares back at her with curiosity.

“Doesn’t Nedley mind?”

Nicole snorts.

“He loves ya, Waverly,” she says.

Waverly is silent for a little too long.

“He does?” she asks, voice shaking just the slightest bit.

Nicole shrugs.

“How couldn’t he?” she asks, and she talks about him, but she talks mostly about herself.

***

When they’re home, Nicole tells Waverly to choose something from her garden so she gets a little inspiration, and the wonder in Waverly’s eyes as she looks it over, analyzing it with devotion, is more than enough to keep Nicole full for days and months and years.

***

Waverly brings Orville Peck with her, too, and she puts it on as Nicole cooks them minced meat tacos, with the fresh bell peppers Waverly’d chosen and the small head of lettuce Nicole hadn’t had the heart to tell her wasn’t quite ready yet.

It is lovely, really.

There is a strange sizzling as they eat, all electricity and heaviness as their eyes meet every once in a while, unbearably white heat whenever their fingers brush against each other, and Nicole feels her stomach twist and turn and the marrow of her bones is oil, thick and hot and dreadful.

And since Nicole has found she really is becoming quite cheeky, she invites Waverly up to her room after their meal.

And time bends and disappears and the world is made of cardboard as they kiss, breathless and desperate, and it’s been a little while since Nicole’s birthday, and she’s missed Waverly Earp’s lips and her tongue and the small whine she lets out whenever Nicole bites her lower lip, and Nicole is sure Waverly’s hands leave red imprints as they press against her waist and over her ribs, and there is nothing else she needs.

It is only when Nicole has Waverly Earp pinned against her bedroom door, thigh pressed between her legs and tongue caressing her jaw, that she realizes with alarm that she might not be able to contain herself. Not like this.

Not with her.

So she tells Waverly they better stop, and Waverly agrees, mouth swollen and red and beautiful, fixing her skirt with a sheepish smile before following Nicole downstairs.

***

When Nicole walks her up to her front door, Waverly kisses her lips one more time, and the seed she’d planted so very long ago has spread.

Nicole hopes it will turn into a forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orville Peck wishes he had what Nicole Haught has.


	19. Chapter 19

19.

“Nicole Haught,” Nicole answer her phone, eyes focused on the Gardenias in front of her.

“I want to book an appointment,” says Wynonna Earp.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya ain’t have a garden,” she points out, smiling.

“Well, since you’ve  _ forgotten  _ I exist, I guess it’s the only way to see you”.

Nicole feels her heart warm a little.

“Ain’t ya sweet, Earp,” she snickers, “ya don’t have to pretend ya ain’t missin’ me, ya know”.

She hears Wynonna guffaw with exaggerated humor.

“I don’t miss you, Edward Scissorhands. I’m just bored”.

Nicole snorts again.

“Alright, then,” she relents, “I’ll stop by ya place with pizza”.

Her heart stops beating when she hears a sweet little voice from the other end, whispering something, and then Wynonna returns to the phone.

“Waverly says bring one broccoli and one pepperoni,” she tells Nicole.

“ _ I said half and half!”  _ Waverly’s voice filters through the phone, and Nicole smiles an enraptured smile.

“I’m  _ hungry,  _ baby girl,” Wynonna replies, and Nicole can almost hear her eyes rolling, “Nicole is rich, anyways”.

“Ya think cuttin’ grass gets ya money?” Nicole asks with a grin.

“Ya think checkin’ IDs and kickin’ men in the balls gets ya money?” Wynonna replies with a terrible rendition of Nicole’s accent.

She’s missed her, too.

***

Nicole’s favorite pizzas are the ones with only cheese. She thinks the toppings ruin the flavor, and she’s way more interested in a good tomato sauce than in piles of low quality processed meat.

She buys one broccoli and one pepperoni, anyways.

***

Nicole’s least favorite part of the day is when the sun goes down. It means she cannot garden, and it means the day is almost over, and it means it is darker and harder to see the creases in Waverly Earp’s lips and the light in her eyes and her hair does not shine as much as it does when she’s under the sun.

(she’s tried gardening at night quite a few times, but once she almost got stung by a scorpion and another time she got sick after staying out too late in the snow, so Nedley prohibited it).

***

It is bliss and it is rapture, spotting the white letter box with the name of her home as she drives her truck after a terribly exhausting day of fighting against stubborn weeds.

It is nothing compared to the way her skin agonizes and burns when Waverly Earp opens her front door with a smile, wearing a unicorn onesie and running towards the car before Nicole’s even turned off the ignition.

And it is incomparable, the earthy, lewd and dirty and tart and angelic kiss she presses against Nicole’s lips before she’s even climbed out of the car, feet precariously stepping on the side step of her truck, lips demanding and greedy as Nicole allows herself to be pulled forward, holding onto Waverly Earp’s waist and lifting her up until she knows her feet cannot find purchase.

And as sudden as it had come, it goes, and Nicole finds herself holding onto the girl’s waist with barely any real struggle, staring up into nothing and everything, and Waverly Earp giggles.

God damn her to hell.

“I missed you,” she says sweetly.

Nicole doesn’t bother to remind her they last saw each other three days ago.

She’s missed her, too.

“Ya want me dead,” she whines, gently lowering Waverly back down onto their driveway.

It is only when she closes the truck’s door that she remembers they aren’t together, not really, and Nicole really does not think Wynonna knows about any of this.

“Ain’t Wynonna home?” she asks carefully as they walk up towards the strange little house.

Waverly shrugs.

“She doesn’t know you’re here yet”.

Nicole didn’t honk her horn and she did not call anyone.

Oh.

“Ya know the sound of my truck’s engine?” she asks, and it isn’t careful, really. It’s hopeful.

Waverly looks back at her with a face that tells her it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Of course,” she says, opening their front door.

Would you look at that.

***

Waverly’s assault made Nicole’s brain quite turbulent, and she stares back at Wynonna as she glares pointedly at her hands.

“Where’s my pizza, Michael Jordan?”

Nicole feels the tips of her ears burn as Waverly lets out a chuckle beside her, moving towards the kitchen to hide her amusement.

“In the car,” Nicole replies dumbly.

Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“Christ, you’re an idiot,” she grumbles, “I forgot you were an idiot”.

A rogue dish rag flies from the kitchen’s doorway and falls perfectly on top of Wynonna’s head.

“Stop being mean to her,” Waverly complains, returning with two cans of Cherry Coke and one of Pepsi.

(Nicole despised Cherry Coke, but always forced herself to drink it when at the Homestead for the sake of friendship. Waverly’d noticed it, one day, after a particular long sip and a particular dreadful grimace, and after that, there were always a few cans of Pepsi in their fridge.

Nicole really likes Pepsi).

She thanks Waverly with a feverish heart.

“I’m  _ hungry,”  _ Wynonna whines.

Nicole rolls her eyes and gets up, walking outside and back to the truck, lamenting the lost minute she could’ve spent in Waverly’s presence.

***

She prefers broccoli over pepperoni, and she quietly revels on the ecstasy of sharing a meal with Waverly Earp.

(she thinks she’d eat the god damned pizza even if she hated broccoli. She knows herself well enough).

“Are you a big shot in the world of home depot yet?” Wynonna asks as she chews on her third slice.

Nicole always liked that she was the only other person she knew who did not seem to care too much about full mouths and talking and whatnot.

“I ain’t workin’ at home depot,” she deadpans, watching Waverly put down the crust of her pizza and move on to the next slice.

She figures they’re at this point by now, so she leans forward and she grabs it, bringing it to her mouth and delighting herself with the memory of Waverly’s mouth.

The girl notices, smiling a profane smile, and Nicole is a warrior, really, for not choking on it as she swallows.

Waverly Earp is a health hazard, reallyt.

“You know what I mean,” Wynonna continues, and Nicole is so very glad the girl is the one of the most oblivious and self-centered people she knows, “cutting grass or whatever”.

“Are ya tryin’ to ask if I’m doin’ alright?”

Waverly snorts.

“She is,” she whispers, and Wynonna glares at her.

“It’s good,” Nicole nods quietly, “better than what I thought, really”.

So much of her life has been better than what she thought, really.

“Um,” Wynonna hums, now moving on to her fourth slice.

“That means she’s happy for you,” Waverly snickers.

Nicole notices she’s never seen the Earp sisters this comfortable with each other, and the banter is a nice change.

They feel like a proper family.

“Ya dad eatin’ shit somewhere?” she asks quietly, to no one in particular.

Wynonna chokes on her pizza, cackling.

“Eatin’ shit,” she repeats, and Nicole thinks she sounds more like a Texan than like her.

“Ya know what I mean, Earp”.

Wynonna smirks.

“That’s exactly what he’s doing, probably”.

Waverly gets quiet, and Nicole doesn’t like it very much. She can be so thoughtless sometimes.

“Ya know what ya doin’ after school yet?” she tries.

That seemed to be a fairly normal thing to ask people. She sure as hell had to answer a lot of those.

“Rosita said Purgatory’s college isn’t bad,” she shrugs, “she seemed pretty excited about it, really”.

Nicole nods.

“History, is it?” she asks.

She isn’t sure what someone who likes to read in Sumerian would like to study in college.

Waverly looks up, beaming.

“Yeah,” she answers, and it is soaked in some strange form of pleasure.

The thing about knowing someone is that it has meaning, somehow.

It is like knowing tomatoes like it when you remove their bottom leaves. They’d still grow, otherwise, but they’re thankful for the space, and the reward is their lusciousness.

***

Knowing Waverly Earp comes with many rewards.

As Nicole picks up the small pieces of her, which are never handed, but rather suggested, hidden on the corner of dark rooms, surrounded by thick trees and made of such power and importance Nicole feels like she’s on the hunt for the Calydonian Boar.

The Calydonian Boar’s death was followed by so much destruction, though.

Sometimes Nicole is scared she will discover things capable of killing her.

***

Waverly has to do homework, much to Wynonna’s chagrin, so she leaves them downstairs and Nicole watches as the ascends the stairs, turning around and winking before she disappears.

God damn her to hell.

“You two are really close,” Wynonna murmurs, and there’s a hint of yearning in her voice.

Nicole shrugs.

“I like her,” she tries.

“She’s great, isn’t she?” Wynonna asks. “I wish we weren’t so… different”.

Nicole looks up with curiosity. Icy blue eyes stare back, and they’re a little warmer, melting against themselves.

“Ya ain’t too different,” she says, “’n we ain’t too similar, either”.

Wynonna huffs.

“You’re both…  _ nice, _ “ she says the word as if it’s a curse. “What’s the meanest thing you’ve ever done? Denied ten bucks to a homeless person?”

Nicole does not mention Perry Crofte and glares and bare breasts.

She does not mention how she sometimes wonders if her mother is the only one there, now, to withstand her father when he is angry and immersed in chemicals.

“Ya nice, too,” she says instead.

Wynonna only huffs.

“Ya are, ya know,” Nicole continues, “I wouldn’t have no friends if it wasn’t for ya”.

Wynonna doesn’t quite smile, really, she just grabs her can of cherry coke and lightly bumps it against Nicole’s cheek as if that is supposed to mean something.

It does, to Nicole, and she smiles.

***

Nicole has never snuck out of her house.

She’s nice ‘n proper, thank ya very much, ‘n she’s always prided herself in her honesty with Nedley, so she’s a little clueless as to how she’s supposed to go about sneaking back in the Homestead after she’s said goodbye to Wynonna.

But she’s set on it, really, and she thinks Waverly likes it when she’s a little daring, so she prays to god and she looks up the window with the four tomato plants in front of it, lights still on as she watches a small shadow move ever so slightly against the wall.

For a moment, she just stands there, pretending she’s nothing more than a plant in Waverly Earp’s room, watching her go about her day and soaking in what it is like to know her when she is not hiding and not running and when she’s allowing herself to just  _ be. _

But she feels a little weird, so she drags the ladder she always keeps on her truck to the side of the house, and then she very quietly climbs it, praying Ward Earp will not come home at this very moment.

And then she’s on eye level with Waverly’s little garden, and she just stares for a second, really, stems and leaves framing the magnificence and the barbarity that is Waverly Earp, ribs bending and cracking as they try to make space for the love which fills her lungs and inundates her heart.

And since Waverly’s presence is the coldness of the water, unseen but so very  _ there _ , and since Waverly is but a reflection of Nicole’s love, she doesn’t need to knock before Waverly turns away from her desk, pretty little eyes widening as she spots a grinning Nicole on her windowsill.

And Nicole does not know this, but Waverly thinks about the beauty of the world.

She stands up, and Nicole cannot help the shaking of her hands and the light breeze on the back of her neck as she slowly unlocks the window, opening it without a word.

Nicole climbs inside, straddling the windowsill with patience as Waverly quietly takes away the pink pots filled with life and love and moves them to her desk, and her garden makes way for Nicole Haught to come inside.

“Hey,” Nicole greets, and she is nervous.

Waverly is not.

She doesn’t say anything, moving until Nicole is pressed against the window, and she kisses her with so much hunger, bloodthirsty as their lips fit instantly, and they start to dance again, all heads and tongues and lips moving with religious precision, and Nicole holds onto Waverly Earp’s waist with the sole purpose of making sure she is still on planet earth, and Waverly pulls on the hairs in the back of her neck and there is less of a breeze and more of a tornado.

“God,” Waverly groans, and she licks her lips, taking in Nicole’s saliva.

Nicole’s stomach is no longer inside her, it is floating somewhere, maybe near Pluto, and the pounding between her legs is less a request and more a command.

She pulls Waverly back, maneuvering until she’s the one pressed against flatness, and she pushes until Waverly gives in, legs spreading deliciously.

Nicole swears she can  _ feel  _ the heat emanating from her.

God damn her to hell.

Nicole follows, as she always does.

***

A question burns her from the inside out when Waverly removes her shirt with a little too much enthusiasm, and it melts her bones as she removes her own, but she forgets about it when they press against each other, skin on skin, and Nicole almost staggers back with the warmth of having the very last layer of who she is absorbing and melting into Waverly Earp.

“Ya-Ya done this before,” she says, and it sounds like a question.

Waverly pulls back, mouth tantalizing and wicked as it dares Nicole to come back home.

“Kissing?” she asks with a dubious frown.

Nicole shakes her head.

And then she goes back home, kissing Waverly Earp’s tangy and evil mouth with all that she is, revelling in the power of accompanying a god into oblivion.

“Oh,” Waverly groans as they part, and Nicole can’t help the way her eyes fall down to her narrow, bony shoulders, the way her skin stretches over sharpness.

Waverly is the most beautiful contradiction. 

“Of course”.

Nicole feels a little sick, little sense as it has.

“You haven’t?” Waverly asks, always inquisitive.

Nicole huffs out a laugh.

“Done it in ya damn bathroom,” she replies with more venom than she intended.

But Perry Crofte is staring at her back, eyes narrowed and oblivious.

Waverly narrows her own, pressing further back against the wall.

“Ah,” she lets out, and it isn’t fair, really, the hurt in her voice.

Nicole sighs.

“Sorry,” she says, eyes cast downwards as she tries to look at anything but the white heat in front of her.

Waverly moves away, sitting down on her bed.

Nicole wants to throw herself out of the window.

“What’s this about?” Waverly asks her quietly, as if afraid of the answer.

Nicole shakes her head.

“Nothin’,” she assures her, “I just… didn’t expect that”.

Waverly snorts.

“You thought I was a virgin?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

Nicole feels her face reddening, fingers shaking as her palms start to sweat.

“I ain’t thinkin’ nothin’,” she grumbles weakly.

Waverly just looks at her for a while. Nicole feels like a lab rat, under fluorescent lights and constant observation.

“You’re being weird,” she points out.

Nicole runs her hands through her hair with a sigh.

“Sorry”.

Waverly shrugs with a hum.

“You’re jealous,” Waverly points out as well.

Nicole throws herself on the bed beside her.

It dips, and their closeness makes her skin itch.

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

Waverly lets out a low huff.

“We’re not… dating, you know,” she says.

Nicole can picture her soft little hands squeezing the bird perched on her shoulder, leaving nothing but a mess of blood and feathers.

“I know,” she replies, voice muffled as she presses her face further into the mattress.

It smells like Waverly, and she feels bile burning her esophagus.

“And it’s not like I’m…  _ with _ anyone, now,” Waverly continues.

How awful it is to be relieved by the mere thought that Waverly is not fucking someone else after she sends Nicole into a different world.

She sits up.

“I think I should go,” she mumbles.

Waverly frowns, and it’s a blessing covered in dirt and gore.

“Don’t go,” she says, and she sounds like her Waverly again.

Nicole takes a deep breath.

“I know we ain’t… nothin’,” she says, and the words are razor blades cutting through her tongue, “ya can do whatever ya want”.

The words are razor blades aimed at Waverly Earp’s heart.

An ugly part of her wishes she’s hit her target.

“So I have to be fine with you fucking your girlfriend in my own house, but you can’t handle knowing I’m not  _ pristine  _ anymore?” Waverly bites, and it’s her way of saying her heart is not intact.

It’s so strange, arguing about what no longer is.

“It ain’t about that,” Nicole tries weakly. “Ain’t nothin’ ‘bout bein’... pristine”.

She never liked fighting.

“What is it about, then, Nicole?”

Nicole will be damned if she knows the answer to that.

Because she cannot answer that what bothers her is not the thought of Waverly giving herself away to someone who is not her, but the knowledge she’s done so to someone unworthy, someone who did not appreciate it, someone who did not see her as god incarnated.

And it’s stupid, really, because she is who she is and Waverly is who she is and they are not under any obligation to agree on what is life and what is love.

She stands up.

“You never had a boyfriend,” she says with apprehension.

Waverly stands up, too.

“So?” she dares Nicole to continue.

Nicole wants to tell her she will not, cannot be a Champ or a Perry or whoever the fuck it was that had the pleasure and the honor of being with Waverly Earp, only to be discarded afterwards, made fun of, demeaned.

“Am I like them?” she asks, and her voice is nothing but a whisper.

Waverly stares at her, chest rising and falling with calculated slowness.

Nicole thinks of men who pretend to be statues, and she wants to cry.

Waverly laughs, then, a bitter, hollow laugh.

“No,” she says simply.

Nicole watches the shadows of stems and leaves dance across the universe, and she waits.

Waverly sighs, defeated.

“You’re nothing like them, Nicole,” she says, filled with dread, “don’t even… it’s not like that”.

Nicole loves the words, but she hates that they don’t sound quite right.

“Does Wynonna know?”

Waverly furrows her brow.

“What?”

“Does your sister know about us?” Nicole insists.

Waverly shakes her head.

“Why not?” she asks.

“I just… I just didn’t tell her”.

Nicole smiles.

“What if I told her now?” she asks.

Waverly’s eyes widen.

“She can’t… It’s too complicated”.

Nicole chuckles, and it’s ugly.

“Complicated,” she tastes the word.

It’s too salty, and it leaves her mouth dry.

“There ain’t nothin’ complicated ‘bout me, Miss Waverly”.

Waverly swallows, throat bobbing as she steps into Nicole’s space.

Nicole does not move.

“Don’t call me that”.

It is silent, then. Like a tomb.

“You… you called me that when we were younger”.

“So?” Nicole raises her eyebrow.

“That’s not what we are anymore,” Waverly whispers.

Nicole feels a little embarrassed that Waverly’s garden is watching them.

“What are we, now?” she asks, and it’s less malice and more desperation.

“I don’t know”.

Nicole nods, taking in a breath too cold and too crisp.

Waverly’s world is all about her wants and her desires and her actions, after all.

“I just… All I know is that you’re… you,” she says, and the little whine dragging it’s way up her throat turns Nicole into melted snow under the new sun.

“What about me?” Nicole asks quietly.

Waverly laughs.

“You’re… god, Nicole,” she pleads, “you’re  _ hot  _ and you’re  _ handsome  _ and you’re  _ smart  _ and  _ sweet  _ and I just… I can’t deal with it”.

Nicole laughs, too, and it’s filled with something she cannot recognize.

“Please,” Waverly begs, hands holding onto Nicole as if her distance might pull them apart, “just… be patient”.

Nicole laughs and laughs and laughs.

What is she if not endless and unwavering patience.

And she kisses Waverly again, because their skin is still touching and her lips still call her home, but her stomach twists and her spine rips itself away from her body, because it feels wrong to dance with the devil.

***

For the first time in what feels like forever, Nicole sits down with Nedley, pints of ice cream in front of them, and they watch RuPaul’s Drag Race.

She misses him, she’d noticed.

Waverly Earp seemed to absorb her attention and her care and her love.

“Sir?”

He grumbles his answer, too focused on Adore Delano.

“Ya know… Everythin’ good in my life, I have because of ya”.

He’s no longer focused on Adore Delano.

He turns his head slowly, deliberate as he looks over at Nicole, mustache twitching.

“Everythin’ good in ya life’s because ya a damn brave little devil,” he replies with grin.

Nicole considers his words.

“Ya think I’m brave?” she asks him, musing over his words.

He snorts.

“The bravest little chicken”.

She slaps his arm, chuckling before she presses a kiss to the top of his fraying hair.

***

“Timothy, god damn ya!” Nicole sighs.

The warm sun shines down on her like a curse, and her skin is already red as she walks over to Timothy, hat in her hands as she examines the damage he’s done.

“I take ya away from ya brothers ‘n ya done ‘n ruin my damn grass, ya little shit,” she whines, pulling up her sweatpants before she crouches down, quietly grieving the dying grass which surrounds the dill.

If he could laugh, Nicole is sure he would.

“I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” comes the highest and most savory voice Nicole’s ever heard.

Waverly Earp stands a few feet away, a bag of gummy bears in her hand, and she grins at Nicole, eyes squinting under the sun.

She’s wearing sinfully tight jeans and a very short cropped shirt, and Nicole is fully aware she’s wearing sweatpants and a shirt Nedley had gifted her three years ago.

(as if her suffering is not already enough, the shirt reads  _ I love you from my head tomatoes  _ and depicts two tomatoes with cartoon faces drawn on them.

Fuckin’ hell).

“Howdy,” she greets, set on not embarrassing herself further.

Waverly giggles.

“I like your shirt”.

Nicole feels her cheeks turn red.

“Shut up,” she groans, bare feet pressing against grass as she walks over to Waverly. “What ya doin’ here?”

Waverly smiles a light little smile.

“I don’t like fighting with you,” she says simply.

“Ain’t no fightin’,” Nicole replies, “disagreed, ‘s all”.

Waverly laughs.

“Disagreed,” she consider with a nod.

Nicole hates how she cannot bring herself to be mad or to be sad or to care for the hollow bones and the gore which surrounds them.

“I wasn’t bein’ fair, either,” Nicole shrugs.

Waverly smiles, and it says that the past is the past.

(Nicole thinks of how she wishes her future was Waverly’s future, too).

And she watches as Waverly walks over to Timothy and caresses his stems. Nicole is the stern parent, she muses, and Waverly is the caring one.

“Ya wanna listen to some cowboy music?” she asks, another piece of her ripe for picking.

Waverly smiles with devilish purpose, kissing her cheek and pulling her inside the house, and Nicole loves her enough to accept the second coming as not salvation but damnation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no did you think all was well and fine and beautiful and the story was almost over? my bad


	20. Chapter 20

19.

“Ya ruinin’ ya damn lungs,” Nedley grumbles, throwing the rolling papers sat on Nicole’s desk on her face.

Nicole snorts.

“Ain’t ruinin’ nothin’,” she replies, getting up from her bed.

She’s not taller than Nedley, despite what they both expected, but his age and his tiredness make him look a little smaller, and she feels like she has to bend down to press a kiss to his forehead.

“’n it’s my money!” she reminds him, following as he makes his way to his own bedroom, unbuttoning his uniform shirt. “Can buy what I want”.

He rolls his eyes.

“If ya didn’t buy all those damn cigarettes ya’d have the money for the truck all by yaself,” he says, though they both know that is absolutely not true.

Nicole sits on his bed, crossing her legs as he goes into the bathroom.

“Ya want salad for dinner?” she asks him, voice loud enough for him to hear.

His head appears in the doorway, eyes narrowed.

“I ain’t no rabbit,” he replies, disappearing once again.

Nicole laughs, and a moment later he returns, wearing pajama pants and T-shirt with Adore Delano’s face on it.

(Nicole’d gotten it for him on his birthday, though she had to order it online with his own credit card.

He didn’t mind).

“Ya gettin’ real round, though,” she says, tugging on the loose threads of her sweatpants.

It was a strange day, all heavy clouds and sudden wind, and Nicole had enjoyed the overdue break from work. She never liked rest, but it was nice, watching Animal Planet and texting pictures of every cute animal she saw to Waverly.

_ Ya gettin’ famous,  _ she’d caption, and Waverly would reply with hearts and tomatoes and rolling eyes and kisses.

The tomatoes were Nicole’s favorites.

“It’s my favorite shape,” he argues, and Nicole smiles at the man she would not dare call her father.

It’s silent for a while, as he searches for his sandals and locks his gun inside his safe.

She tugs on a thread and it comes right off.

“Ya ever hear anythin’ ‘bout my parents?” she asks him, and the question surprises them both.

He’s silent for a moment.

“Not really,” he says, and the way he says makes it seem like an apology.

She shrugs.

“That’s best, I guess,” she says, wrapping the long thread around her finger.

He sighs.

“Ya ain’t have to pretend it don’t bother ya,” he tells her quietly, and the bed dips, telling Nicole to rest her head on his shoulder.

She does as she’s told.

“Is it bad if I don’t? If I really don’t care?” she whispers, and his heavy arm comes to shield her from all that she could have been.

“Course not,” he smiles, “ain’t a bad bone in ya body”.

She is not sure that is true.

“Ya got away from somethin’ bad ‘n ya found somethin’ good,” he shrugs, “ya can’t feel guilty for takin’ care of yaself”.

Nicole takes in a breath and she counts to five.

Sometimes she thinks that was the last time she ever really did something for herself.

“It’s weird,” she says, “knowin’ they haven’t even bothered”.

It doesn’t quite make her sad, really, but it’s like a small bug crawling over her skin, always there, never quite close enough for her to reach.To feel.

“Ya know,” Nedley says quietly, “ya mom was real nice, when we were younger. Real nice”.

Nicole realizes they’d never talked about her before.

Sore subject and all that.

“Was this kid in school,” he starts, “real scrawny, real lonely. She’d always invite him over for lunch”.

How strange a place the world is, turning around and floating away and returning right back to where it started.

“Never were close, her ‘n I, but we were… family, ain’t it? Don’t matter much if ya close or not. Still family”.

Nicole thinks of Wynonna Earp, and she smiles.

“What happened to her?” she asks, heart a little unsteady as she waits for the answer.

He shrugs.

“Ya know what’s worse?” he asks, a murmur and another apology, “I have no idea”.

Nicole sinks further into him, cheek rubbing against his shirt.

“She just… drifted,” Nedley says, and it’s pained and relieved, “’n when I realized, she was already gone”.

Sometimes, Nicole forgets that the man who lives with her was all alone, before. Sometimes, she forgets she was the first one to ever care about what he liked to eat and to sit down and watch TV shows with him and teach him how to take care of orchids.

(they were his favorite flowers).

Sometimes she forgets she depends on him as much as he depends on her.

***

Nicole’s favorite plant, ironically enough, was one she had never taken care of.

She loved banana plants, though she wasn’t sure why.

Purgatory was not nearly warm enough for them, of course, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever plant one, really, because her favorite thing about them was the novelty involved in their limited capacity to  _ give. _

Banana plants will only give you one banana bunch in their lifetime, and it was not uncommon for them to slowly wither and die, afterwards.

(she knew why she loved them, of course. They reminded her of Waverly Earp, but the thought was too sour and too bitter for her to swallow, so she chose to spit it out).

***

Maybe because she’s tired and a little lonely and maybe because she feels guilty her love and her attention have been stolen from her will, she invites her friends over to her house for the very first time.

It’s a barbecue, naturally, though Nicole has never worked with Nedley’s old grill. She was set on her choice, though, and she thought Wynonna would have a laugh or two at the sight of a lesbian in dirty overalls barbequing, which was incentive enough.

Nedley is at the station, since Nicole was never lucky in her damned life, so she begs Dolls to come early, for god’s sake, it’s already eleven in the morning and she still hasn’t figured out how to light up the damn barbecue.

(she’s nervous, really nervous, because five out of the six loves of her life are coming to the place she only calls home because Waverly Earp is not a place but a presence and a feeling and a girl, and she smokes three cigarettes as she sits on the porch and waits for Dolls to arrive).

***

“Are you trying to set your house on fire?” Dolls asks, pulling his cap further down his head as he examines the alcohol-soaked grill in the middle of her lawn.

(he’d walked over to her garden, first, and stared at it with a serious expression before looking over at Nicole and allowing himself to smile a small smile, with a curt nod which said  _ I’m proud). _

“It wouldn’t light up!” she whines, fanning herself with her hat as she feels sweat, salty with nerves and desperation, run down her forehead.

“You have to be  _ patient,”  _ he rolls his eyes, and then he gets to work.

It’s strange, having someone help her with something.

It’s real nice.

***

“I didn’t know you had a  _ farm, _ ” Wynonna says, “and all you give me is  _ one bag  _ of tomatoes,” she complains, lowering her sunglasses as she takes a better look at Nicole’s garden.

“It ain’t a farm,” Nicole rolls her eyes, and she tries to hide the nervousness in her voice.

It’s so hard, being known.

Wynonna puts her sunglasses back on, and it’s ridiculous that she’s wearing leather pants to a fuckin’ barbecue, but what else did Nicole expect, really.

“Cool plants,” she says, finger guns and all.

Nicole feels her blood turn to warm honey inside her veins.

And then it’s milk and honey, when Wynonna walks over to Dolls, slapping his ass with a snicker as he tells her to get away from the fire, and Nicole spots Waverly Earp, in denim shorts and a button up with eagles and bees, crouched in front of Timothy, whispering something to him.

Nicole walks up slowly, glad she’s shoeless as the grass helps her and keeps her silent.

“She’s taking care of you, isn’t she?” Waverly asks Timothy, “of course she is”.

Nicole smiles at her needless worry.

“We kissed, she told you already, didn’t she?” Waverly confides.

It’s so delectable, being known.

“Waves,” she greets, feeling dirty with the eavesdropping.

Waverly slowly gets up, and she turns around with a smile brighter than her garden’s life source.

“Hey,” she says.

Nicole thinks of cold and crisp watermelon, sweet and slick on her tongue.

“Timothy says you have to let him grow,” she tells her, pointing at the clipped stems.

Nicole huffs.

“He’s gonna take over my entire lawn!” she whines.

Waverly walks over to her, pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek, and then she grins.

“Then let him”.

***

Nicole would let the goddamned dill grow right over her, roots digging right through her flesh and stems tangling around her skin.

***

When Rosita and Doc arrive, Nicole guides her to her garden and tells Rosita to pick up some cucumbers and some fresh basil, she’s going to try and make her a drink.

Rosita smiles a pretty smiles, hugging Nicole and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

(Nicole thinks it’s a little strange that it lasts longer than Waverly’s).

Doc stands back, whistling at her garden with a twinkle in his ocean blue eyes.

“That’s impressive,” he tells her.

Nicole should start taking notes of all her favorite days.

They’re starting to pile up.

***

“You know who showed up at Pussy Willows with a fake ID last week?” Wynonna asks, sipping on her beer and determined to make the biggest mess possible over the table Nicole had dragged over to the lawn as she eats rib after rib after rib.

Literally no one answers, and she grumbles.

Nicole sips on her own beer with a smirk.

“Champity-Champ,” Wynonna answers herself.

Rosita snorts.

“Seriously?” she asks, sipping on the drink Nicole was sure wasn’t very good, but Rosita had insisted it was. It was her third glassf. “Was the fake any good?”

Wynonna snickers.

“What do you  _ think?”  _ she asks, “he literally printed out a new one on a printer and covered the year with a pen”.

Doc laughs, choking on his food, and Nicole chuckles as Dolls tries to hide his own laughter.

“Was he with Bobo?” Waverly asks, not very amused.

Nicole hated that she still called him by his nickname.

“Yup,” Wynonna smirks, “real nice to kick him out”.

Nicole is sure it was.

“I always forget he kicked Haught’s ass,” Dolls says, and he’s smirking.

Nicole thinks he’s been spending too much time with Wynonna.

“Kicked  _ my  _ ass?” she retorts, “ain’t the one with an ugly nose, am I?”

Xavier chuckles, winking.

“Not too sure about that, Haught stuff,” Wynonna snorts.

And then there is a small cloud cover

“I still dream about that day,” Rosita says quietly.

Nicole’s ribs are too tight and too rigid.

She does, too.

“Thought one of you would end up dead,” she continues, eyes cast downward.

The only sounds around them are the sizzling of the grill and the music of Nicole’s garden.

Wynonna blows a raspberry.

“This bitch here doesn’t fucking die,” Wynonna complains, “she’s like those chickens with the heads cut off, walking around like nothing happened”.

Nicole loves her so much.

She snorts, and Waverly looks a little empty when she smiles at her sister.

***

When Nicole brings their dishes to her kitchen, telling them she will be back in a second, she feels Waverly Earp following her inside, empty beer bottles clinking against each other as she silently helps Nicole.

“Ya ain’t need to do nothin’,” Nicole tells her, placing the dishes inside the sink, “I’ll be back in a second”.

Waverly smiles a smile which tells her I hear what you say, my darling, but I do not care.

Nicole huffs out a laugh before turning on the sink.

“Does it bother you?” Waverly asks from beside her, struggling as she tries to sit on the counter.

Nicole laughs before wiping her wet hands on the rag in her back pocket, grabbing onto Waverly’s waist and pulling her up.

She tries to ignore the shuddering against her palms as she moves Waverly up and sits her down on the counter, and she tries to ignore the little gasp of fervent rapture which flows out of Waverly’s mouth and inundates the kitchen.

What is the sun and hot smoke next to Waverly, sat atop the kitchen counter with her legs wrapped around Nicole’s waist. What is anything, really, when the girl looks at Nicole from above, descending from the sky and judging her sins and her virtues.

“Our friends are outside,” Nicole reminds her, because she wants nothing more than to kiss her, but she’d never overstep and she’d never hurt her.

Waverly shrugs.

“They won’t come in here,” she tells Nicole, lithe hands reaching for her neck and curling themselves in Nicole’s hair.

She tips Nicole’s hat back.

“Ya awful handsy,” Nicole tells her with a smile she cannot help.

Waverly chuckles, pollen and seed.

“You’re not too proper, either,” she bites back.

Nicole figures she isn’t, really, because she pulls Waverly forward by her shirt and she presses her lips against Caelus’. She tries to will her skin to stay still and not waver, and her muscles to keep themselves contained, and her being from not reaching up and up and up, but it is fruitless, of course.

It’s sweet, the kiss, watermelon with sugar and just the tiniest hint of lemon.

And then, maybe because she’s scared of outliving her dream, or because she’s cheeky now, she pulls back with a wink, lightly slapping Waverly’s thigh before she returns to her dishes.

“You like doing dishes more than you like me,” she whines, saccharine and young.

Nicole smirks.

“Ain’t that so?” she teases.

Waverly grumbles as she washes the dishes, and she never liked doing the dishes very much, but she thinks she quite likes it now.

“Ya asked me somethin’, before,” she says, “’bout botherin’”.

Waverly sighs.

“Can we go back to the kissing?” she tries, lightly kicking against Nicole’s side.

Nicole is older, she reasons with herself. She’s the mature one.

“Ain’t good, all kissin’ ‘n no talkin’,” she says, stern as she absolutely cannot be. Not with Waverly.

The girl sighs.

“Just… Champ and Bobo and all. Does it still bother you?”

Sometimes, Nicole wonders if she hasn’t crossed to the other side of the mirror, the one with dead rabbits and hunger, and Waverly is still in the right side, the one with magic rabbits and milk with honey.

“Course,” she replies, a little too brazen, and she looks over to Waverly and tries to smile. “Not ‘bout gettin’ hit or nothin’”, she clarifies, because she is nothing if not honest. “Just that ya still friends with him”.

Waverly looks down at her feet, hands picking at her nails.

“Not friends, exactly,” Waverly tells Nicole, as if she did not already know it, as if it did not keep her awake sometimes, as if it did not make the taste of bile stick itself to her tongue.

“’n ya still kiss him,” she tells the girl, because it is not fair and it is not right.

“I’m not kissing him anymore, Nicole,” she retorts, and it’s too acid for the position she is in. “And he wouldn’t have done anything to you, you know. If he wasn’t friends with Bobo, back then”.

Waverly treats guilt and fault and action like Lego pieces, made to fit with all and with none others, disposable and removable as she sees fit.

“He ain’t had no gun to his head tellin’ him to be a dick,” she tells Waverly, because it is the truth.

Waverly sighs.

“I know”.

Nicole considers it.

“Ya ain’t have to make friends ‘n lose friends ‘cause of me, ya know,” she tells her, “but just… ya have to know ya choices have consequences”.

Waverly looks up at her as if she’d never thought of that before.

“Isn’t that about actions?” she asks with alien playfulness.

“Choosin’ is actin’,” Nicole tells her, because if she’d chosen to stay still, she would not have a garden.

Waverly looks at her with something Nicole pretends is love.

“Did I hurt you?” she asks.

Nicole laughs, because it is the only thing she can do.

“Course ya hurt me,” she says, “ya still do”.

Waverly attends so many funerals.

“Ya was with the boy who laughed at me gettin’ the lights punched out of” she shrugs.

“We weren’t friends, back then”.

That somehow cuts deeper than any other answer.

“That’s why ya guilty?” she asks, and it’s equal parts curious and disdainful, “’cause we  _ friends  _ now?”

Waverly groans, pressing her face against her palms. Her cheeks are blood and rubies.

“No,” she retorts, an exhausted little thing, “it’s just… hard”.

Nicole touches her knees, telling her she is there and she will be there when her heart breaks, too.

If Waverly will have her.

“What’s hard?” she asks.

Waverly looks up, forest hiding monsters and fairies, and she pouts.

God.

“Doing what I should do”.

Nicole smiles.

“Bein’ good ain’t hard”.

Waverly shrugs.

“I’m not sure I’m good”.

Nicole laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Ya good alright,” she says, because Waverly is light and love and everything, “ya just mess up sometimes”.

Waverly smiles a sad smile.

“With you,” she sighs with regret. And then the sun comes out again. “I haven’t talked to him in so long, you know. Definitely not kissing him. I just… Want you to know that”.

It’s such a tiny thing, really, barely enough to fertilize it, but hope waters the seed inside Nicole’s skin and it reaches the tips of her toes.

Nicole presses her lips against Waverly’s, a reminder that she’s been hurt but she’s still here.

“I don’t die, remember?” she smiles, “like ‘em headless chickens”.

Waverly laughs, and Nicole has only one purpose in life, and that is to make things grow.

***

She’d take her bones and she’d crush them into dust to make that seed grow.

***

When Nedley arrives, he greets Dolls with unmistakable affection, and Nicole knows she is looking at Purgatory’s next Sheriff.

She smiles.

***

She doesn’t think it’s weird when Rosita asks her if she’s free on a Tuesday night, so she agrees to have dinner with her with no apprehension.

But then she arrives, and Rosita is strangely quiet, and she feels her stomach convulse with nervousness.

“Everythin’ alright?” she asks her.

Rosita just smiles at her, and there’s uncomfortable longing in her eyes.

“I didn’t know you were with Waverly,” she says gently.

Nicole feels her face pale, and it is unfair, really.

She’s past that.

“We ain’t… together”.

Rosita snorts.

“I’m not blind, Nicole”.

Nicole sips on her Pepsi, looking at anything but Rosita.

“It’s alright, you know,” Rosita assures her, “it’s just… unexpected”.

Nicole laughs, because it’s the one thing in her life she dared to expect.

“She always gets the hot ones,” Rosita grumbles, and there’s playfulness in her complaint.

Nicole snorts.

“Champ’s hot, is he?” she smirks.

Rosita laughs.

“Are you still not over Champ?” she asks Nicole, and she blushes.

“Ain’t nothin’ to get over,” she explains, “it don’t make sense, is all”.

Rosita snorts.

“Waverly never worried much about sense when choosing her… partners”.

Nicole’s life is so tragic, you see.

“Whaddya mean?” she asks, and she regrets it.

Rosita shrugs.

“Not everyone spends almost all of High School with the same person, you know”.

Nicole knows, of course.

“How ya know so much about her?” she asks.

Rosita smirks.

“Nicole, some of us have social lives beyond their garden,” she teases, and there’s no poison and no malice. “See her, sometimes. Parties and all”.

Nicole just stares at her, feeling the wood under her fingers as she drifts away on a raft.

“You’re good for her,” Rosita tells her as a consolation prize, “she seems… happier. More focused”.

Nicole wonders if Waverly is good for her.

“We aren’t together, not really”.

Rosita deflates, and it’s a little too much like pity.

And then she smiles.

“You’re in love with her”.

God, Nicole is crystal clear water running over steady stone.

She shrugs.

“She’s not very easy, is she?” Rosita hums.

Sometimes Nicole forgets there are people who function and build relationships and gather knowledge.

“She ain’t very easy,” she echoes.

Rosita smiles.

“I’ve never seen you look at Shae like that”.

Nicole knows, and the guilt she feels is outweighed only by her affection.

“I never… I didn’t feel like this, with Shae,” she admits, because it is nice to talk to people and not to plants.

Rosita smiles.

“Tell her that if she’s stealing the hottest girl in Purgatory from me,” she grins, “at least make it count”.

***

Nicole, in all her soil and seeds and leaves and stems, buries herself, immersed in what cannot speak and cannot tell her she is wrong or she is right.

It’s nice to dig her way out.

***

Waverly Earp lays on her bed, quietly reading, and Nicole looks at Waverly’s four tomato plants, dancing and cheering for her as they reflect the light, green prisms as they cover Waverly’s room with life.

(Waverly’d asked her if she could come over after work. Her father was home and Wynonna was not, and she did not like to be alone with him.

Nicole, for the first time in her life, only mowed the lawn she was working on once, not checking for uneven grass before she jumped into her truck and drove to the white letterbox).

Waverly calls for her, laughing at Nicole’s distraction over nothing, and she tells Nicole the entire story of Atalanta with wonder in her eyes, and Nicole does not have the heart to tell her she knows it already, because Waverly, as she always does, turns it into something  _ more  _ with her words and her voice and her eyes.

She’s an alchemist, really.

“Ya readin’ ‘bout ‘em greeks, now?” she asks quietly, and she feels her fingers tingling when Waverly invites her to sit beside her, legs stretched over the bed.

The bed dips and tells Nicole to love Waverly fully.

She allows herself to wrap her arm around Waverly’s shoulder, and the girl dissolves against her, cheek rubbing against her chest.

“Yeah,” she replies lowly, eyes closed. “You smell good”.

Nicole laughs.

“I smell like grass and sweat”.

Waverly laughs.

“You smell like gardens”.

***

To be loved for nothing more than who you are.

***

When Waverly kisses her softly, with painful tenderness, when she tells Nicole stories and tales and things Nicole will never understand, Nicole allows herself to forget her fate is but a fragile little seedling, and Waverly can crush it just as easily as she can care for it.

When she looks at Nicole with wonder, disbelieving Nicole would ever want to listen to her talk about the Opium Wars, and Nicole only laughs and tells her Opium comes from where poppy seeds come from, did ya know that?, interests intertwining and complementing, it is easy to forget Waverly only kisses her when no one is looking.

***

And it’s funny, really, that that day Wynonna does not have to work and she comes home early.

***

It is not funny, when Waverly flinches away from Nicole, denying her affection, and some twisted part of Nicole hates her for it.

Wynonna greets them with suspicion, but walks out anyways, and the silence she leaves is violent in it’s nothingness. 

“Waves?” she tries.

“I’m alright,” she replies, and Nicole swims deep into the sea. “Just… surprised”.

Nicole wants to get on her knees and beg.

What does she have to lose, really.

She kisses the top of Waverly’s head with overflowing  _ care,  _ and she almost cries in relief when Waverly sinks against her, and her skin is no longer there and her muscles twitch when Waverly looks up and kisses her on the lips.

***

And Nicole closes her eyes and counts to ten and prays to god and she gets up, telling Waverly she’s going to the bathroom, and it’s a lie, because she opens Wynonna’d bedroom door and she waits for the girl who’s staring out the window with curled up fists to notice her presence.

And she does.

“What the  _ fuck?” _

Nicole counts to twenty. And she counts to thirty and forty and fifty as Wynonna blubbers on and on about betrayal and ignorance and advantages.

The last one brings her father back from his grave, and her neck is hot and terrible as she sees red velvet, long forgotten and dusty with age.

“Ya say I’m takin’ advantage of her one more time, ‘n I’ll smash ya teeth”.

Wynonna stops talking, finally, and she stares at Nicole. There is hurt and disbelief and so much  _ anger. _

“What’s going on between you?” Wynonna asks finally. “Don’t lie to me”.

_ Please,  _ Wynonna does not say.

Nicole closes her eyes.

“I’m in love with her,” she says simply, because it means nothing and it means everything.

There’s defeat in the way Wynonna slouches against her own bed.

“You didn’t… you didn’t even  _ tell me”. _

Nicole shrugs.

“I’m waiting for her,” she says, and somehow, Wynonna understands.

She lets out a long breath.

“I don’t want to hurt her. I can’t”.

“You’d hurt me, instead?” Wynonna whispers quietly. “I’m your… Jesus, Nicole, we’re fucking  _ friends _ ”.

Nicole feels her heart sink, swimming with giant squids.

“I didn’t even… realize it, for so long,” she whispers, and she sits down beside Wynonna. “And then it just… it just happened”.

“What  _ happened?”  _ Wynonna asks carefuly.

Nicole shrugs.

“We kissed”.

There's a moment when Nicole thinks she's lost the one person who'd push her back just as hard as she pushed them.

“Since when?” Wynonna asks her, voice sandpaper against Nicole’s skin. 

“That we’re… kissin’?” Nicole asks, “a month. We ain’t… datin’, though. She ain’t… she don’t want it”.

Wynonna sighs, and there is relief and pity ebbed into it. Her eyes are not ice, only water.

“Since when have you been in love with her?” she asks quietly, and Nicole is relieved, really, that she has not lost a friend.

She chuckles, and it rips her throat apart.

“Since before I was born, I think”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is... super fucking long, apparently?   
> a testament in endurance, really. thanks for following me into madness.


	21. Chapter 21

19.

When Nicole gets home, she tells Nedley she’s too tired to watch TV with him.

***

It’s strange, sitting with Wynonna in silence.

Nicole doesn’t think that’s ever happened before.

She stares straight ahead, too scared she’ll move too fast or breathe in too quickly, and she listens to Wynonna picking up her beer bottle, and spots the movement out of the corner of her eye.

The few and far-between trees in the park urge her to say _something._

“Ya mad?” she asks with zeal.

Her sub sandwich stares back at her, and Nicole feels her stomach convulse with the mere thought of eating anything.

“No,” Wynonna replies, voice hard and stone.

“Ya sound mad,” Nicole pokes.

Wynonna rolls her eyes with a huff.

“Do you _want_ me to be mad? ‘Cause you’re getting there”.

Nicole shuts up.

“God,” Wynonna groans, “the universe hates me”.

Nicole stares at the ground, watching the light trembling of grass blades against too-cold wind.

“My sister and my best friend,” Wynonna laments, sipping on her beer, “Jesus Christ”.

Nicole isn’t too sure what’s so bad about it, honestly.

She’s better than Champ.

“Ya prefer Champ?” she asks, trying her hand at being the Nicole Wynonna loves.

“I _prefer_ the devil,” Wynonna retorts, trying her hand at being herself.

“I wanted to tell ya,” Nicole sighs, pursed lips as she rips off a single blade, “but I couldn’t… betray her trust”.

It was already so fragile.

“And before you two were… whatever” Wynonna looks at her, clear puddles agitated by the wind, “when you were _in love_ with my sister?”

Nicoel doesn’t like the way she says it.

“I just… I guess I just didn’t think it’d matter. I didn’t think she… she…”

She what, really? Had fun with her? Liked her? Loved her?

Wynonna understands the blank space.

“I didn’t know she was… that she liked girls”.

The way Wynonna says it, with pain and regret, cuts through Nicole’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” she answers, and she’s aware she has stolen a piece of what belonged to Wynonna.

She snickers, hollow and cold.

“Not your fault, is it?” she asks with a shrug, “more like mine”.

Nicole doesn’t agree, but she says nothing.

“I’m still not sure when her birthday is, you know?” she asks, voice dripping with shame, “I just figure it’s the day she has a party or something”.

“September eighth,” Nicole murmurs, date dragged away by the wind.

Wynonna lets out a noise of self-pity and disbelief.

“Not hard to know why she likes you better,” she tries to joke, but it isn’t funny.

“It ain’t a competition,” Nicole replies.

“Thank god,” Wynonna hums, “if it was, I’d win world’s worst sister”.

Nicole shakes her head.

“That ain’t true,” she consoles, and Wynonna grimaces.

“Don’t start lying, now,” she whispers, “I know I’m not… there, most of the time. She’s probably going crazy right now and I hadn’t even noticed”.

Nicole says nothing.

“It’s just… hard, you know?” Wynonna continues, and Nicole has never heard her sound like that. “I’ve worked to hard to just… get away from that _family,”_ she spits out the word, “and she just… didn’t follow”.

“Ya can’t expect her to deal with it the same way ya do, ya know”.

“I _know,_ Einstein,” she rolls her eyes, “it’s just… I can’t handle looking at her and knowing she still thinks our dad will just come home one day with pizza and hug us and tell us he loves us and shit”.

Nicole considers it.

“I ain’t sure she thinks that anymore”.

“You know what I mean” Wynonna grumbles. “We’re just not on the same place”.

Nicole does, of course.

There’s more silence, eerie and candle lit.

“What’s… what’s going on, exactly?” Wynonna asks.

Nicole shrugs.

“We’ve just… we just… we kiss, sometimes, ‘s all”.

Wynonna snorts.

“I can’t believe this is an actual conversation I’m having”.

Nicole looks over at her.

“I’m sorry”.

“Stop apologizing, Jesus,” Wynonna groans, “it’s impossible to be mad at your stupid ass. You’re too fucking _nice”._

Nicole loves her, then, and she shoves Wynonna’s shoulder with all the affection she has in her bones.

“Ya ain’t upset with her, are ya?” she asks cautiously.

Wynonna huffs.

“That she’s been hiding _this_ from me? Fuck yeah”.

Wynonna does something strange, then. She rests her forehead on Nicole’s shoulder, sighing with impossible exhaustion, and Nicole revels in the coldness of her skin.

“That she’s… whatever? Of course not”.

Nicole never thought she’d mind, really. Wynonna chuckles, something arid and tart.

“I just wish she felt like she could tell me. She must be suffering so much,” she whispers to the grass.

“Why?”

Wynonna laughs, and it’s sand.

“ _Why?”_ she repeats, “do you even know her?”

Nicole grumbles, something deep and low against her throat.

“She’d literally kill to fit in and be normal, Nicole,” she says, slapping Nicole’s back, and it’s her way of saying _you’re fucked._ “You think being with a lesbian farmer classifies?”

What is it about people and fitting in and caring about what grows around them.

Wynonna hangs her head.

“I’m not sure she thinks even I can love her,” Wynonna murmurs, crushing Nicole’s bones. “Maybe it’s her fault, that we’re so… apart”.

Nicole thinks of her mother and of Randy Nedley and she thinks that it’s good that Wynonna at least realizes the distance.

“Ya know,” she tells Wynonna, “it ain’t too late to learn her birthday”.

Wynonna smiles.

***

She is not proud, but she avoids Waverly for a week.

There’s just something about the way Wynonna had said she was suffering, and something in the certainty they both had that this could not, would not work.

She has to work, and her car needs a wash, and Nedley asked her to try and fix the kitchen sink, and Timothy is lookin’ real lonely.

At least that’s what she tells herself and that’s what she texts Waverly.

It feels like something has changed, somehow, the air is a little too thick and her lungs a little too fragile, and she’s scared. She’s scared that she will come pick Waverly up from school and she will take a long time saying goodbye to her friends and she will not run towards the turquoise truck and Nicole is scared her lips won’t have a home to return to.

She tries not to cry with sheer fright as she plants a row of cabbages in Mrs. Lee backyard.

***

But Nicole feels her leaves falling and her stems withering, so she asks Wynonna if it’s alright if she picks Waverly up from school, today, she thinks they need to talk.

And there’s a coat of something which glimmers around Wynona’s affirmative.

***

She works at a furious pace, and she rushes home to shower before she goes to one of her least favorite places again.

She thinks Waverly deserves her at her best.

When Nicole arrives, she parks the truck on the very same spot and she begs for mercy as she leans against it’s hood and watches the outpour of teenagers as they leave the building.

Waverly looks confused, really, and Nicole stares at her from the distance and silently pleads for her to come near. 

After an infinity compressed in ten seconds, she does.

She doesn’t bother to say goodbye to her friends, and it feels an awful lot like victory.

But she doesn’t run, more like marches, steady and deliberate and belic, and Nicole feels her muscles contract as she fights the urge to run.

“Hey, Waves,” she says slowly, raising her hand in a sheepish little wave. 

Waverly scowls.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she greets.

Nicole hates how much she loves Waverly’s immeasurable capacity for disdain.

“Been busy, ‘s all”.

Nicole hates Waverly’s capacity to pull out lie after lie from her dry throat.

She supposes it’s not really her fault, though.

“I’m pickin’ ya up,” she tries with a shrug.

“I can see that”.

Nicole sighs, opening the passenger door and allowing Waverly to come in before she walks around the truck, allowing herself a fraction of a second to look over at the sight of Waverly Earp sat inside her turquoise truck.

Aphrodite inside her trireme.

Nicole almost laughs at herself.

She climbs inside, and Waverly is already rifling through the cds in her glove compartment, silently analyzing them. Nicole hesitates before she reaches out, the brand new _My Finest Work Yet_ begging her to play it since it’d arrived from Amazon three days ago.

Waverly stares at the cover.

“The Death of Marat” Waverly points out.

Nicole knew she knew that image from somewhere, but she wasn’t smart enough to know the name of the painting.

“Ain’t know the name,” she hums.

“You’re funny,” Waverly muses, anger forgotten. “I don’t think I know anyone else who owns records and cds anymore”.

Nicole admits it’s a little more than a quirk, really, the desire to hold music in her hands. A rather expensive one, at that.

But she’d always felt so immaterial. As if she was barely there, and maybe all it took was her being alone for her to vanish altogether.

So she collected possessions, luxuries she never thought she’d have, and she transformed her room into a nest. She couldn’t be a ghost, not with the person she was staring back from all around her.

“I like havin’ ‘em,” she tells Waverly instead. “I was… thinkin’ I could cook ya lunch. Ya ain’t ever have homemade lunch”.

Waverly hasn’t forgotten, she rarely ever does, but she nods with a small smile, and Nicole drives her to her home.

***

Nicole knows one of Waverly’s favorite things in the world is the Rosetta Stone. Something about beginning of language and translation and the ultimate representation of our desire to know each other and exchange knowledge.

Sometimes, she’d ask Waverly about it as they ate together in silence, or when she drove her somewhere, just to hear her voice, dripping with passion and with intelligence, and it felt like listening to music.

So it’s a bit funny that when Andrew Bird sings about cracking codes, Nicole can hear the barest of gasps clawing it’s way out of the girl.

Strangely enough, it feels like she’s the one listening to Waverly’s soul, this time.

It’s a nice change.

***

“Stop mutilating our child,” Waverly grumbles as Nicole clips away a few stems off of Timothy. 

Salmon, she was making. Salmon and lemon and dill with roasted potatoes.

(she knew Waverly liked fish quite a lot, so she kept a bag of frozen salmon in her freezer. Just in case).

“He ain’t feelin’ it,” she returns, clipping away one final stem before she gestures for Waverly to follow her inside.

“Of course he’s _feeling_ it,” Waverly says, “you’re ripping off his arms”.

“Clippin’,” Nicole corrects.

“How would you feel if someone _clipped_ off your toes?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya threatenin’ me?”

It’s nice to pretend they don’t have anything to say to each other.

She allows them to bicker as she cooks, and she pretends the air is not thick as they eat, and it’s only when they go up to Nicole’s room that they both let out a breath, as if shedding skin.

“You went out with Wynonna,” Waverly whispers quietly, picking at her nails as she sits down on Nicole’s bed.

Nicole decides it’s best to keep her distance, so she sits on her desk chair.

“I did”.

Waverly seems to think about something, long and hard.

“Ya talked?” Nicole tries.

Waverly shakes her head.

“I don’t… I don’t have anything to say”.

Nicole thinks she would’ve preferred getting shot than hearing that.

“Ya don’t have anythin’ to say?” she asks for confirmation, an edge to her tone.

Waverly looks up in confusion.

“Yeah?” she confirms.

Nicole huffs.

“How ‘bout ‘hey, I’m neckin’ ya best friend’?” she asks, all fangs and irony.

Waverly stares at her, all intent and simmering annoyance.

“She didn’t _see_ anything,” she clarifies, as if she thinks Nicole is stupid.

Nicole tastes copper.

“She ain’t have to _see_ to _know,”_ she retorts with matching sharpness.

It’s bittersweet, too, because she thinks of how she cannot see Waverly, sometimes, but she can feel her love for her, and it reminds her that she is out there.

She’s so tired of being behind, of waitin’ ‘n hopin’.

“She’s not stupid,” Nicole adds, and it’s less sharpness and more smooth edges, almost a plea for mercy.

Something snaps inside Waverly, so intense and perceptible Nicole swear she hears a crack.

“Did you tell her?” she asks carefuly.

“Didn’t have to”.

It’s funny, how Nicole cannot keep herself from admiring Waverly Earp’s sharp jaw when it clenches.

“What did she know?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper, and Nicole is more scared than the day Robert almost cracked open her skull.

“She knew there was somethin’ goin’ on,” Nicole shrugs. “She asked ‘n I told her she was right”.

Nicole thinks of the Big Bang when she looks into Waverly’s eyes, right then.

“You _told her?”_ she repeats, and she stabs Nicole right in the stomach.

She shrugs.

“I ain’t a liar”.

Not usually, anyways.

Waverly scoffs.

“So you out me to my sister?” she asks, twisting the knife against her gut.

What an ugly word.

“I ain’t outin’ nobody,” she tries.

“That’s exactly what you did”.

Waverly Earp pulls out the knife and she allows the wound to bleed freely.

“Waverly,” she pleads, “we were basically… ya know what she saw. Ya know there ain’t explainin’ us that close”.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“It’s called having _friends”._

Nicole scoffs.

“Is that what we are, Waverly? Friends?”

Waverly doesn’t reply, and Nicole watches as her throat bobs when she swallows around nothing.

“Ya know what ya problem is?” Nicole asks, because she is tired and her back hurts and the wound in her gut bleeds and bleeds and bleeds and she cannot allow Waverly to make her feel guilty for staining her bed sheets.

Waverly is up, now, and she crosses her arms and cocks her head, daring Nicole to tell her.

Waverly used to like it, when she was a little daring.

“Ya ain’t care ‘bout nobody but yaself,” she bites, and the words are sour and bitter in their honesty. Nicole chokes when she tries to swallow.

Waverly scoffs.

“Who are you to say that, uh?” she asks, and Nicole tries very hard to steel herself against what she knows will not be fun. “All you care about is your fucking plants”.

It’s so strange, having someone tell you to embrace who you are only so they can kill you for it afterwards.

And Nicole knows it isn’t true, deep down, but Waverly is a god and her words have been written down and worshipped, and she is only human and cannot deny how it takes her back to being alone and alien in a town most unwelcoming, with too long legs and too red hair.

One of the things Nicole always loved about Waverly was that even when they did not speak, when she looked at Nicole as if she was a threat or a nuisance, she had never made Nicole feel like a foreigner. There was just something in her eyes, which spoke of welcome mats and warm cups of coffee.

She wants to cry.

“If ya want me to apologize, ya go on home,” she says, because she will not cry in front of Waverly, and her voice shakes and trembles and there’s so much bile in her throat she worries it might just melt everything away. “I ain’t apologizin’ ‘bout tellin’ my friend ‘bout us”.

Because it’s all she has, all she cares about and all she is, and it feels worse to deny something she’s worked so hard to become than denying the consecrated host.

“ _Us?”_

The disdain and disbelief and plain anger in Waverly’s voice stabs again, though it’s a little higher and it cuts a little deeper.

And Nicole feels the memory of her father once again, all red and heavy as she clenches her fists and tightens her jaw.

The only explanation for her surviving her wounds is that Waverly says nothing else, picking up her coat and leaving Nicole’s room with heavy footsteps, and she leaves the knife there, buried between two ribs as it mangles the bird inside Nicole, and Nicole does not cry.

She sits and she dry heaves and her hands shake so much she cannot close them anymore, and she is sure she is going to die.

***

When she wakes up, she sighs with defeat at the realization that she had not died.

For the first time in her life, she calls one of her clients and tells them she’s sick and cannot make it to work.

***

And she lays in bed and she tries not to think that there was only one other time when she allowed herself to be in bed this late.

She’s glad Nedley is working on a big case and barely spends time at home, because she knows he would ask what was wrong and she knows she would tell him, and saying out loud that Waverly Earp had lodged a knife between her ribs so deep her heart’s wings could only flutter against it as it desperately fought to survive would make her misery true.

So she lays in bed and she eats gummy bears for lunch and it is only the nagging anxiety of leaving her garden unattended that forces her to get up and shower and leave her room.

***

She tends to them with care and with silence, and they thank her for her kindness, caressing her skin and allowing her to pick a basketful of vegetables. She thinks about givin’ ‘n takin’ and she’s glad even her garden knows more about balance than Waverly Earp knows about anything at all.

***

She hates that the only thing that’s keeping her from pulling out the knife and bleeding out is sheer hope.

***

Three days later, when things are a little too much and she is just too tired to handle it, Nicole Haught texts Rosita and Wynonna and she asks them if they can come over to her place, she needs to talk to them.

It’s so strange, asking for help, even if help is only their presence, and she puts on her hat out of desperation and out of comfort, and she sits on the front steps and watches Timothy as he tells her she’s allowed to take, too, and she waits until Wynonna’s ancient truck appears, palms sweating as she hears doors slam and feet numb as both Rosita and Wynonna make their way to her lawn.

“Hey!” Rosita greets cheerfully, and Nicole almost vomits.

Wynonna follows silently, and there’s a look in her eyes that tells Nicole she knows there’s something that’s just not quite right.

“Are you okay?” Rosita asks when she gets closer, “you look… tired”.

Nicole takes in a deep, sharp breath, and Rosita sits down silently beside her, warm hand resting between Nicole’s shoulder blades.

“Does she know?” Wynonna asks, sitting down on the grass.

Nicole nods.

“Know what?” Rosita asks, smooth circles tracing Nicole’s skin and assuring her that she is not alone.

“About her and Waverly”.

Nicole swallows dryly.

“There ain’t no us,” she whispers quietly.

“What?” Rosita asks, and there is a caution Nicole had never heard in Waverly’s voice.

“She said there was no us”.

Wynonna groans, and it is knowing and unsurprised.

“God, she’s stupid,” she says with affection.

“She ain’t stupid,” Nicole defends weakly.

Wynonna snorts.

“What happened?” she asks, because she knows Nicole well enough to understand a few things about timing and despair.

So Nicole tells them.

She tells them they had talked and she tells them Waverly had not liked the conversation and she lets the world know it is true that there is a knife lodged between her ribs, because she explains everything, and she doesn’t care about family or sisters or outings as she wills herself not to cry.

Nicole tells Wynonna her sister had broken her heart in such a soft, infinitesimal way, calculated in its crudeness, that she had been kept alive, but could not move a muscle.

Nicole tells Rosita that she knew it was going to happen, really, and in a sense she’d craved the blade, because at least it was solid and _there,_ but even then, Waverly had not given her the privilege of certainty.

It’s funny, such a small thing being so cruel.

Nicole thinks of Bot flies.

***

“Ah… fuck,” Wynonna sighs when the tale is told and larvae are exposed.

Nicole laughs, all root and bark.

“Yeah”.

There is something to be said about friends, really. If Waverly and Nicole were vulnerable and fragile like basil, Wynonna and Rosita had dug deeper, burrowing themselves with no intention and no malice, all wild figs and eucalyptus as they grew.

Nicole thinks it’s funny, that she only knew Waverly because she knew Wynonna. It added sugar to the bitterness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, now we're getting to the fun part.  
> and by fun, of course, i mean everything but.


	22. Chapter 22

19.

The good thing about having her heart ripped out from her chest is that Nicole has the time and the motivation to work.

She likes how easy it is to garden, how she knows exactly what to do and what is wrong and how to fix it. She had missed certainty.

So she works, probably more than would be strictly healthy, and she likes how her palms form blisters and her nails crack and her knees are almost constantly scraped and reddened. It’s tangible proof of her effort and of her usefulness.

***

Tending to dozens of gardens also means she is constantly exhausted, and she has little time to think about Waverly Earp locking her jaw and telling her there was never anything for her to miss.

She never forgets her headphones, either, just in case her voice tries to worm it’s way inside her ears.

It doesn’t always work.

***

“Ugh,” Wynonna scowls, “you look terrible”.

Nicole scoffs, shrugging as she settles on her couch, handing Wynonna some bourbon and Rosita a drink she just made up, mixing cheap vodka with whatever she thought would work. She sips on a bottle of beer with a little too much thirst.

(it’s strange, gathering with her friends anywhere but at the Homestead, but it feels like a non-place now, a threat or a mockery or a dare).

“Thanks,” she grumbles, looking down at her sweatpants.

“How have you been?” Rosita asks her, and it’s interesting, really, how each of the girls approach Nicole's suffering.

Sometimes she wonders if her moping is an exaggeration, but she still avoids the spot Waverly Earp had sat down on her bed. It feels like a rabbit hole.

“Alright,” she lies, though it feels like she’s getting used to the blade lodged in her ribs, and it doesn’t ache with it’s sharpness, but rather swells with discomfort, and she can feel the skin around it trying to push it out.

Wynonna snorts.

“Don’t look it,” she says, graceful as usual.

Rosita slaps her forearm as one might reprehend a dog.

“I’m just workin’ a lot,” Nicole shrugs, and she gets up to get herself a second beer.

“You smell like dirt and cigarettes,” Wynonna tells her as if it helps anything.

Nicole rolls her eyes, opening her fridge.

When she returns, Rosita looks an awful lot like she’s chastising her child as she grumbles something at Wynonna, who just rolls her eyes.

“Ya can say it to my face, ya know,” Nicole tells them, “I ain’t gonna break”.

It’s funny, saying that when you feel like little more than debris.

“If it helps,” Wynonna starts, “Waverly is being a major ass lately”.

“Wynonna,” Rosita warns.

Nicole lets out a breath.

As painful as the blade is, she could never wish any ill towards the girl.

“That ain’t make sense,” she grumbles, “she’s the one who broke up with me”.

Broke up. Funny choice of words.

“You can talk about it, you know?” Rosita offers.

Nicole smiles at her.

“I know”.

And it’s true.

***

She doesn’t like to talk about it.

She feels like she’s being silly, really, suffering so much over a girl she had been with for little over a month, who she had not the privilege of calling a girlfriend or anything other than her name. She thinks of Shae, and how even after years of being with her, letting her go had been a relief.

She guesses that no longer being a teenager means knowing that easy so often means _wrong._

_***_

“Not this way,” Nedley tries to instruct, though Nicole just presses a little harder.

“It ain’t budgin’,” she whines, pressing the wrench a little harder, but the kitchen sink’s siphon doesn’t appear to be willing to move.

“That’s ‘cause ya doin’ it wrong,” he tells her with impatience, body hovering her as she sticks her head inside the cabinet. “Do it the other way”.

“I’m doin’ it all ways!” Nicole retorts, sweating as she tries to get the wrench to budge, “it ain’t budgin’!”

“That’s ‘cause of ya skinny arms!” Nedley replies with just as little patience, “let me do it”.

“I wanna learn it, god damn it,” she groans, taking a deep breath and shaking her hands before she takes hold of the wrench again.

She pushes, entire torso pressing with her as she tries to turn the wrench around, and after a moment, she feels herself sink down about half an inch.

“It’s movin’!” she yells, excitedly raising her head to look up at Nedley and effectively thumping it against the counter.

It makes a funny sound, a little muffled and a little too loud, and she’d have laughed if she wasn’t sure her skull had split right open.

Nedley crouches down, fussing over her and pulling her out from under the sink by her shoulders.

“Damn ya!” he chastises, “had me thinkin’ ya’d split ya head open”.

“I _did!”_ she retorts, hands pressing against her head in search for warm scarlet.

“It ain’t bleddin’, ya damn fool,” Nedley tells her with a click of his tongue, “ya so hard headed I should worry about the damn counter”.

Nicole rolls her eyes, still pressing her calloused palms against the top of her head, feeling the blood pounding against them.

“Stick to ya garden,” Nedley advises.

“I wanna learn it!” she whines as she watches Nedley kneel down in search for the wrench.

He rolls his eyes with a sigh before handing it to her, holding on to her forearms and pressing down with her, and the wrench moves a little further down.

***

Every Thursday, she drives over to Pussy Willows after work, wrapping herself around a thick coat and holding two cups of coffee.

She isn’t sure why Thursday, or how it had even become a _thing,_ but she brings Wynonna some warm coffee to make the standing outside in the cold a little less bad, and she sits with her for a couple of hours, sometimes just silently sipping on her coffee as Wynonna does the same, only stopping to check someone’s ID or yell at a drunk, and sometimes they talk and talk until there’s nothing left to say.

It’s nice.

She thinks about balance.

***

“That was by far one of the worse fakes I’ve ever seen,” Wynonna mumbles, sticking her hands inside her coat pockets as she blows out smoke.

Nicole pulls on her own cigarette.

“Ya let ‘em in,” she notes, more of an observation than a reprehension.

“Who _cares,”_ Wynonna sighs.

Nicole snorts.

They sit in silence, and Nicole watches dry leaves being dragged across the pavement by the insistent wind.

“She misses you,” Wynonna says, voice nothing but a whisper, and Nicole feels the knife twist and stretch her bones.

She says nothing.

“We talked, you know,” Wynonna continues, uncaring, “I told her I didn’t care,” she shrugs, “and that she was being a dick, and she just listened”.

“Ya say that? That she was a dick?”

Wynonna snorts.

“Do you even know me?” she scoffs, “of course I did”.

Nicole chuckles.

“That ain’t nice,” she retorts weakly.

“God,” Wynonna blows a raspberry, “the girl punches you right in the tit and you’re still worried about being nice”.

Nicole smiles.

“I want her to be well,” she says with a shrug.

Wynonna coughs dryly.

“Stop being gross, Casablanca”.

Nicole snorts.

“You’re not going to talk to her, are you?” Wynonna asks quietly.

Nicole shakes her head.

“I can’t”.

Wynonna shrugs.

“She’s just not… ready, you know?” Wynonna says, and it feels an awful lot like an apology.

Nicole smiles, and it’s peppercorn seeds and too-strong ginger.

“I know”.

***

She absentmindedly sips on her bitter coffee, eyes still narrowed with the heaviness of the morning, and she thinks about fresh mint but tastes only rot.

“Mornin’,” comes Nedley’s voice.

She hears his heavy footsteps as he pours himself a cup before dropping down on the table in front of the omelet she’d made him.

“Ya look like death,” he tells her.

Nicole had not slept, and her nails were already browned with humid soil. The air was colder, now, all dead leaves and dry stems, and gardening was already getting a little uncomfortable.

“Thanks,” she hums back, staring at the wooden table and thinking about how strange it was, having breakfast over a corpse.

Nedley sighs.

“Ya tellin’ me what’s wrong or do I have to go over to ‘em Earps ‘n ask?”

The word dries her blood, and she bites her tongue.

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong,” she replies weakly.

Nedley huffs.

“’N why haven’t I seen Waverly no more?” he presses.

Nicole looks up at him, eyes narrowed.

“Just leave me alone, alright?” she snaps.

He looks surprised. His mustache twitches with something she doesn’t think she’s seen before, and guilt presses against her spine.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “We just… had a fight”.

“A fight?” he asks gently.

Nicole shrugs.

“I did somethin’ she didn’t like ‘n she said somethin’ I couldn’t hear”.

Nedley sighs.

“Ya two were together?” he asks, and it’s almost an afterthought.

She loves him for it.

“Not together,” she shrugs, “we just… we just,” she sighs, shaking her head, “we kissed, was all”.

Nedley says nothing, his silence gentle and saccharine.

“Wynonna saw us, one day, just… close. ‘N I knew she knew, so I went to talk to her ‘n she asked ‘n I told her and Waverly didn’t like it”.

Nedley rests his heavy hand against her own, caressing the callouses distractedly, his love unconditional and pure like the flow of a river.

“Why not?”

Nicole lets out a breath.

“I ain’t sure. She said I outed her”.

Nedley thinks for a moment, fingers still moving against her palm.

“That ain’t right,” he says finally. “Ya say she knew, ‘n she’s ya friend”.

It’s lovely, hearing the words Nicole was repeating to herself over and over again until she’d feel they were right said out loud by someone else.

“She’s… unpredictable,” she says, a little uncomfortable with how right the word is.

Nedley snorts.

“She’s a kid. Y’all damn fickle”.

Nicole breathes in and she breathes out and it hurts when her lungs move.

“I liked her”.

Nedley squeezes her hand.

“I know”.

In.

“I still do”.

He squeezes her hand again.

“I know”.

Out.

“I’m in love with her, sir,” she breathes out.

He holds on tight and he does not let go, strong arms protecting her from what she has become.

“I know, chicken,” he tells her.

For the first time since Waverly had told Nicole she was not who she thought she was, Nicole allows herself to cry.

She does not sob, and the tears are light and airy against her cheeks.

***

“Kid?” Nedley says one evening as they drink milkshakes and watch Discovery Home & Health.

“Yeah?”

He coughs.

“Ya deserve the world, ya know?” he says softly.

Nicole hums.

He stares at her.

“I know,” she grunts, trying very hard to focus on the confusion of color and sound in front of her.

Nedley rests his hand over her knee.

“Just know what ya deserve, yeah?”

She’s trying to figure that out.

***

She sees her, one day.

Later, she will tell herself it was the surprise and unexpectedness that had made it so bad.

She is working in the Lawson family’s backyard, gathering dried leaves before she gets to trimming their Abelias, when she hears some commotion inside the house. It sounds an awful lot like teenage girls, and she remembers their oldest daughter is called Linda, and that she’s in Waverly’s class. She entertains the thought of a high and sweet little voice amongst the yelling, but she shakes her head, putting her headphones back in and rolling up the sleeves of her white sweatshirt before she gets back to work.

She’s sweaty and dirty and distracted when Mrs. Lawson descends the porch steps and invites her in to have something to drink, and she cleans her hands in her red bandana before shoving it back inside her back pocket, following the woman in with a grateful smile.

As she walks towards the kitchen, the voices get louder and louder, and then a sudden feeling of dread dawns on her as if a rock was tied to her feet as she sank lower and lower, and she knows before she sees, of course, that Waverly Earp is indeed among the girls.

And she only staggers for a moment before she pulls her hat down a little lower and enters the kitchen. Mrs. Lawson says something about politeness and a choir of teenage girls greet Nicole, and she’s too damn polite to keep her head down, so she looks up and lets out a low “howdy” like an idiot.

When Nicole Haught sees Waverly Earp after weeks of sand and drought, it feels like the blade inside her starts to burn, getting hotter and hotter until she can _feel_ her ribs burning and turning to ash, and she can _feel_ all that she is burning with it as she tries to be whole.

Waverly looks beautiful, of course, in tight blue jeans and her absurd little shirts and Nicole feels something which is not from this world tug on her lips until she smiles. It’s not a greeting, but an involuntary, almost natural reaction.

Waverly smiles back, the little smile Nicole had seen one day after Waverly had argued with her for ten minutes about how easy it was to shoot a basketball, only to miss the backboard by a good eight feet.

She tries not to dwell on what it means, following Mrs. Lawson dutifully as she asks her if she prefers apple or orange juice, and her lips quiver when she says _orange_ and Waverly’s voice accompanies her, repeating the word like an apology as she whispers to no one but Nicole.

She looks away, the blade too hot and mocking, and she accepts the glass handed to her with a curt nod and a quick thanks before she’s leaving the kitchen with feet which feel like lead and a throat so dry it hurts to swallow.

***

The orange juice tastes like bleach.

***

As she trims the last Abelia, her hat the only protection from the now too bright sun, she hears soft padding and she feels the hairs on her forearms stand up.

“Hey,” comes Waverly Earp’s dreadful voice, and Nicole focuses on the shears in her hands.

She hums her response, uncomfortable and bloodless.

There’s silence, then, too deep and too dense as it chokes Nicole and fills her lungs with water.

“I tried to call,” Waverly tells her, and it’s true. There are over twenty missed calls in Nicole’s phone, all marked with _Waves,_ followed by emojis of a tomato and a wave.

There’d been nothing but leaves dancing to the wind, the first week after their fight. But then, Waverly’d called almost every day, and Nicole suspected it had something to do with Wynonna, but she knew she’d be gone and dust again if she answered, so she’d let it ring, staring at the picture of Waverly holding a handful of cherry tomatoes with the most excited expression on her face as her stomach threatened to wither inside her.

So she decides to say nothing, and she keeps clipping away with the shears, though she no longer registers lengths and shapes or anything but the hot coal that is Waverly’s presence, daring her to stare back as the sun dares you to keep looking, only so it can blind you.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Waverly tries again, voice a little louder.

Nicole grunts.

“I ain’t have nothin’ to say,” she replies quickly, afraid the words might come right back inside her.

“Nicole-”

Nicole turns around, shears hanging from one hand as she narrows her eyes at the burning explosions standing in front of her.

“Ya made yaself clear, alright?” she tells Waverly, voice too high, “ya ain’t have to say anythin’”.

 _Just leave me alone,_ she wants to say, _let me grieve and let me die and allow me to exist without your ghost._

Waverly was never too kind.

“I’m _sorry,”_ she answers, voice even higher, “I’m _sorry,_ Nicole. I didn’t… I shouldn’t have acted like that”.

The worst thing about all of it is that Nicole does not know what she’s apologizing for.

It’s different, after all, apologizing for an argument and apologizing for a sin.

She says nothing, staring at Waverly with a fire which betrays her quivering knees and empty lugs.

“I was just… Scared, and I took it out on you, and I’m sorry”.

There’s so much sorrow in her voice, Nicole has to keep herself from walking up to her and embracing her until she absorbs all that is not joy from Waverly Earp’s body.

“And I know you’re probably mad, and you should be, really, but I just _need_ you to know that I really am sorry”.

What is she sorry _for?_

“Don’t do this,” Nicole warns, voice low and a little terrifying.

“Do what?” Waverly pleads, and Nicole closes her eyes.

“Don’t ya come here ‘n tell me ya sorry for god knows what and expect me to follow ya around like a damn puppy,” she says, and she thinks Timothy would be proud of her.

She’s a little proud of herself, really.

“I ain’t _Champ_ ”.

Waverly looks at her, honey strands following the wind and eyes full of forests blooming and dying and blooming again.

“I know that”.

Nicole chuckles, something dark and filled with lead, and she returns to her plants.

***

She had been thinking.

She had a lot of time to do that as the planted and she cared and she watched growth. She thought about her mother and her father and she thought about the love she felt for Nedley and the love he felt for her, and she thought about Wynonna Earp and Rosita Bustillos and Xavier Dolls and John Henry, thoughts like roses as they wrapped themselves around her mind.

She thought about Waverly Earp, too, when the thought of her no longer made Nicole feel like she’d swallowed copper.

And she thought of banana plants and the lower leaves in tomatoes, and she realized with a strange kind of certainty that what she was doing to herself was not too different from her father sticking needles between his toes.

So she decided she was all out of giving.

And with that decision came a strange wave of warmth, lukewarm salt water as the ocean washes over our bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this one is a little shorter, but it says what it has to say.  
> as usual, thank you for the love.


	23. Chapter 23

19.

“You know what you should plant?” Wynonna asks, mouth full of chewed burger.

Nicole has to admit it’s kinda gross.

“What?” she asks.

“Weed,” Wynonna grins.

Dolls rolls his eyes.

“You can’t grow weed at home,” he tells her. “It’s illegal”.

Nicole snickers.

“No one cares if you have one teeny tiny plant,” Wynonna shrugs.

Rosita steals one of her fries, sitting back with a smirk.

“That’s true, though,” she agrees, “Nicole should grow weed”.

“Ain’t happenin’,” she tells them with a snort.

“God, you’re boring,” Wynonna whines. “What about you, Doc?” Wynonna nudges him.

He raises his eyebrow.

“I am not a farmer, Wynonna,” he reminds her.

“You don’t have to be a farmer to grow your friends some weed”.

Nicole tries to remember when exactly they got to talking about drugs.

“I think I’ll pass,” he says with an apologetic smile.

“Where would they even get seeds?” Dolls asks out of sheer curiosity.

Wynonna huffs.

“All my friends are _cops,”_ she complains.

“Good question, tho’” Nicole nods at Xavier, sipping on her milkshake.

He chuckles.

“Do you guys seriously think it’s _hard_ to get illegal shit?” Rosita asks with pursed lips, and Nicole likes how they glisten under the fluorescent lights.

Wynonna shushes her.

“Rosita!” she chastises, eyes comically wide, “there’s a cop and a baby sheriff here”.

Nicole smiles.

***

Friends are a distraction.

They’re constant and sure and easy, the right sort of easy where you can sit back and watch as they discuss college and cattle and Pussy Willows and becoming a police officer, and they listen when you talk about plants and how the winter will make you jobless.

The thankfulness she feels threatens to outgrow her skin, stretching against her muscles.

***

For the first time after what feels like little more than a dream, Nicole buys no expensive gifts and she does not drive to the Earp’s property on the eighth of September.

It feels wrong to be by herself all day, and she feels guilty, somehow, wondering if Waverly is alone or if anyone remembered, so she texts Wynonna Earp _it’s the eighth of September._

Wynonna replies with a single question mark.

 _It’s her birthday,_ Nicole tells her.

Wynonna sends her a series of emojis which make very little sense. There are shocked little faces, tiny knives and a snowman, for some reason.

Then she sends her another text, which reads _thanks._

It’s followed by a black heart, and Nicole is pretty sure she’d never seen Wynonna use that one before.

***

There’s strange satisfaction in ensuring Waverly Earp is a little less sad.

There’s strange satisfaction in ensuring the Earps remain a family, small as it is.

***

But Nicole Haught is a creature of inherent wilderness and inherent love, so she sighs and texts Waverly a short message, congratulating her on her birthday, because the thought of Waverly thinking she’d forget makes her skin crawl with a hundred bugs.

It is nearing midnight when Waverly replies, message just as short, but it’s not quite dry, really, and there’s a heart at the end, the one Nicole knows she likes best, bright pink and glimmering.

***

It’s so hard, finding a middle ground between devoting herself to a god who cannot or will not ever answer and allowing herself to keep a friend she loves with all her heart, broken or not.

But she supposes that’s just how it is, when it comes to Waverly Earp.

***

She learns a while later that Wynonna had bought Waverly a pretty dress, and that Waverly had cried at the first birthday gift her family had ever given her.

She also learns there was a party, somewhere, with unknown guests, and the thought of faceless people looking at Waverly Earp as she danced keeps Nicole from eating for two days.

20.

When she wakes up on her birthday, she knows there’s something wrong.

Nedley looks fidgety as he eats his breakfast, and she eyes him with suspicion as she drinks her coffee.

“What?” he asks her.

She shakes her head with a distracted hum.

“Ya garden getting’ real ugly,” Nedley tells her with his usual sensitivity.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Ain’t no garden doin’ good this time of the year,” she tells him.

He snorts.

“Just ya luck, ain’t it?” he tells her, “born right near winter”.

She’d thought about it before, how ironic it was.

It’s fitting, though, at least this year, that her garden is little more than dry leaves and bare twigs and the air lets her know when she breathes out with it’s relentless condensation. Something about seasons and tragedy and short days and long nights and no sunlight.

***

There’s not much she can do to her garden, really, so she pretends she’s doing something useful for a few minutes before walking up to Timothy, in his undying stubbornness, and she grimaces at how weak he looks, this year.

“Birthday again,” she tells him, wondering if he’s aware of the repetitiveness of time and the repetitiveness of humans. “Ya know, I never cared much about ‘em, but after ya get used to a lil’ celebratin’… it’s harder. Bein’ forgotten”.

He shivers with the cold.

***

She was not forgotten, not truly, because there’s a brand new lawn mower on the bed of her truck, the bright red one she’d pointed at when Nedley’d taken her to buy a new wrench after they’d somehow managed to break his old one.

She smiles, running her hand over the newness, and she feels loved, not for the gift, but for the memory.

***

It is cold and too dry as she drives, grumbling under her breath.

Nedley had called her, disrupting her reading to tell her to go do the groceries, he’d forgotten to buy them anything for dinner. She’d told him there was plenty of food in the kitchen, but he’d very forcefully told her he wanted a bottle of wine and a very specific type of pasta, and she supposes she has nothing better to do, really.

So she buys the god damned wine and the god damned pasta and some gummy bears, just for the hell of it all, and she’s thankful her legs are this damn long, because the clerk does not ask her for any ID.

(she laughs at the irony of the town’s sheriff telling his kid to illegally acquire alcohol).

And she drives back home and breathes out, staring at the darkness of her house on the day supposed to belong to her, and she feels a little sad and a little lonely.

A sequence of unfortunate events takes place, then.

She grabs the grocery bag and she locks her car before walking in, wiping her feet on the welcome mat and sighing with untraceable exhaustion, and then she turns on the lights and almost dies right then and there when all of her five friends yell something about surprises and someone blows on a god damned party horn and there are stupidly bright balloons everywhere and of course Nicole jumps with fright and drops the bag and of course the wine bottle breaks over linoleum, and of course Wynonna Earp laughs so loud and so fiercely she falls to her knees.

Nicole tries very hard not to die.

“Your _face!”_ Wynonna heaves, “she’s- she’s dead!” she laughs even louder, “we killed her!”

Nicole just stares at the girl as she holds onto her stomach, laughing and laughing and laughing, and then Rosita joins, and then Doc joins, and then she joins as well, because to hell with it, and there’s sweetness when Waverly Earp laughs and there’s surprise when Xavier Dolls does, too. 

She knows, as one knows the coldness of the ground underneath their feet, that this is all Waverly Earp’s doing, and she knows Waverly Earp loves her, though maybe not how she wishes she was loved.

She supposes there can’t be a lot of choosing, when it comes to love, though.

“God damn y’all to hell,” she groans, staring at the puddle of wine as it stretches on the linoleum, and then Waverly Earp is there with a pile of paper towels, crouching and dabbing away at the mess of shards and ruby red, and Nicole crouches down to help, and it feels a little like healing.

“The birthday girl isn’t supposed to help with cleaning,” Waverly whispers tentatively, an olive branch reaching for Nicole over the mess on the floor.

Nicole smiles, if only slightly.

“Consider it my late birthday gift to ya, then,” she says, and their branches meet in the middle as Waverly smiles back.

There are sounds of bottles being opened as they wipe, and when Nicole moves to stand up, back whining against her skin, Waverly extends her red-stained hands to help.

Life is so very funny, you see.

***

And because there’s ease in having friends, they all sit down on her living room and sip on slightly less cheap alcohol as a way of celebrating. Rosita baked her a cake, though Wynonna had helped with the decoration, which meant there was a dick crudely drawn on it with white buttercream.

Nicole laughs at it, and is surprised that it actually tastes good.

It’s sugar and vanilla and something which is not food and is not material.

***

She’s surprised at how _happy_ she is as Xavier tells her he’d kind of asked, kind of stolen Nedley’s house keys at the station, and Wynonna talks about her being old enough to stop being an idiot, and Rosita complains about how absurd it was that they’d only just learned about her birthday.

Waverly says almost nothing, nervously sipping on rosé wine, and she only smiles when Nicole’s friends go on about how it was her that gathered them all and told them about Nicole’s birthday and planned everything, even the impromptu grocery shopping, and maybe because Nicole is too kind of maybe because she loves Waverly and misses her warmth, Nicole settles her calloused palms on her thigh, and she smiles a smile which says _thank you for tending to my wounds._

Waverly smiles back, and it says _please don’t leave me._

_***_

Nicole excuses herself to the bathroom, and when she walks out, Waverly Earp stands by the door with a sheepish smile and a sweet tinge of red on her cheeks.

“Hey,” she greets simply.

Nicole snorts.

“Hey”.

Waverly just looks at her for a second, and her eyes dig needles against Nicole’s skin.

Nicole knows she’s not over her.

Not even close.

“Weird year, uh?” Waverly tries with an uncertain smile.

Nicole laughs, a little too cheery in it’s own right.

“Ya could say that again”.

She hates the foreign silence between them.

It used to be so easy for the two of them to get lost in themselves.

“I got you a gift,” Waverly says, and then she widens her eyes, “not that- not that kind of-”

Nicole chuckles, though it makes her lungs hurt.

“Anyways,” Waverly sighs, “it’s in your room”.

Nicole walks, and Waverly follows, and it’s strange, being the one leading their dance.

A large, round box sits on Nicole’s bed, and she tries to will away the memory of Waverly’s lips on her just a year ago. It feels too long ago to remember the sweetness, but too near to forget the aching.

Nicole walks over to it with deliberately slow steps, almost afraid of what she will find.

Waverly has a way of crawling under her skin with a little too much ease.

She undoes the pretty bow, smiling at how delicate it is, and she knows Waverly had made it herself.

Inside the box sits a cowboy hat.

Nicole feels her diaphragm dissolve into nothing, and there’s no space for air to enter her lungs.

It’s such a pretty thing, the hat. It’s all black, and Nicole knows just by touching it it’s probably three times the price of her old Sheriff’s hat. She pulls it out of the box with no heartbeat and no blood in her veins.

“Nedley told me what he thinks your size is,” Waverly starts with the uncertainty which distances her from herself, “but he wasn’t sure”.

Nicole chuckles something relieved and something tired, and she puts it on her head.

It fits.

Of course it does.

Waverly stares at her, all wide pastures and howling wind, and Nicole stares back, relishing on the centering weight of the hat as it drags her down and onto the Earth.

“Handsome,” Waverly whispers, and Nicole thinks she was not supposed to hear it.

She smiles, because it’s exhausting, trying not to smile when she’s around the girl, and she moves over to her bedroom mirror, admiring how _right_ she looks with the black hat contrasting against red hair.

She does look kind of handsome, really.

“Orville Peck has one just like this,” Nicole mumbles, because she liked to watch his music videos when she had nothing better to do.

During the winter, that meant a lot of the time.

“I know,” Waverly says.

They’re on even grounds, then, each handing out a few bones and receiving different ones in return.

It’s a strange sort of relief.

“Thank ya,” Nicole whispers, “ya didn’t have to”.

Waverly laughs.

“I kinda _did”._

Nicole huffs, and she’d like to tell her it is probably cheaper to love her back with intent and without fear, but she decides today is a good day and today she is happy.

“I didn’t give ya nothin’,” she says, “on ya birthday”.

Waverly breathes in.

“I think you’ve given me too much, already,” she whispers.

Nicole agrees.

***

Later, when Dolls and Rosita have left, being the only ones with normal jobs and normal futures, Nicole goes out to stare at her barely there garden, rolling herself a cigarette.

Her hands shake.

The door creeks open, and she knows.

“It’s cold,” Waverly comments, wrapping herself around her faux fur, and the coat looks a little less enormous around her frame.

Nicole hums.

“Yeah,” she agrees, “look at ‘em”.

Waverly looks over at her garden.

“It looked better, last year”.

Nicole snorts.

“Lots of things looked better last year,” she says before she can stop herself.

Waverly sighs.

And then she nods.

“Can’t we just… go back to being friends?” she asks.

Nicole is dragged to the center of the earth and there are roots and thorns and no air.

“No,” she answers simply, because it is all she can bring herself to say.

Waverly nods again.

“I miss you,” she whispers.

Nicole sighs.

“Stop it, Waverly,” she begs.

“You can’t just… pretend we weren’t friends”.

Nicole wants to laugh at the absurdity of Waverly trying to tell her what she can and cannot do, and she wants to laugh at the word friends, and she wants to tell her she cannot ever call god her friend, a god is above and beyond and impossible in it’s holiness.

“Waverly,” she starts, coughing against the razorblades inside her throat, “I can’t do this, alright?”

“Do _what?”_

“It’s not _fair_ for ya to ask me to pretend there ain’t ever been nothin’ goin’ on ‘n just go back to bein’ ya friend ‘n ya slave”.

Waverly huffs.

“Stop acting like I was _forcing_ you,” she whines, though there’s no sharpness in her tone.

Nicole wants to tell her it was worse than that.

“I gave ya time ‘n more time ‘n everythin’ ya asked,” she says lowly, “why can’t ya do the same for me?”

She knows that the real answer is that she is a devotee and Waverly Earp is a deity.

“Because I… because I miss having you around”.

Nicole sighs, taking a drag from her cigarette so long and so deep her lungs ache.

“I miss ya too, alright?” she sighs in defeat, “but I just… can’t, right now. Ya ever need me, I’m there, but I can’t just go back to how things were”.

She does not want to go back, because going back means forgetting the taste of religion.

“Why?” Waverly whispers.

Nicole wants to cry.

“Because ya did what ya warned me ya’d do,” she says with finalty, voice shrill and cold, “I need time, yeah?”

She’s had time, of course, months, but they feel like seconds in comparison to the unbirthed eternity that is her love for Waverly Earp.

Waverly sighs, nodding.

“Just… please don’t shut me out?” she pleads.

Nicole only nods, and it is only when she hears the door creaking again that she lets out ash and smoke from her lungs, and her eyes burn.

She tells herself it is the cigarette.

***

There is so much _unknowing._

Nicole does not know why she cannot forget the warmth of Waverly’s skin, and she does not know if Waverly is even aware she’s broken her heart, and she does not know if she will ever be capable of loving someone else the way she has devoted herself to her.

And she knows there is unknowing in Waverly’s desire for the past, and in her incomprehension of Nicole’s pain.

Sometimes, Nicole wants to drive to her house and climb up to her window and tell her that she’s loved her before she even knew who she was, tell her how sinful and how glorious it was to be with her, if only for a little while, to tell her a year is not nearly enough to get over Waverly Earp making it clear she’d been nothing more than an experiment and a little fun and a little convenience.

***

Christmas is little more than cold snow and dead plants, and Nedley tells her he’s worried, she’s getting too thin and she looks tired.

She tells him she misses Waverly Earp, and she cries against his shoulder when he has nothing to say to her.

***

“She always goes on about you, you know?” Wynonna tells her one day.

Nicole wants to tell her to shut the hell up, but she doesn’t have it in her.

“Have you ever just… I don’t know. Thought about being just friends?” Wynonna tries.

Nicole laughs.

“Every time I look at her, I think I’m dyin’,” she answers.

Wynonna lets out a breath.

“Do you miss her, though?” she asks after a moment.

Nicole laughs again, a little louder and a little drier.

“Like I’d miss my own skin”.

***

More out of respect for the man who’d managed to turn a wild little thing like her into a being of love, she decides she will force herself to eat more, and she joins Wynonna Earp’s gym.

She thinks the competition and the company could push her a little harder.

***

“How do you even _handle_ that?” Wynonna groans, removing half the weight from the barbell Nicole had been using.

Nicole snickers.

“I work with ‘em arms,” she tells her, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the bottom of her T-shirt.

“So do I,” Wynonna grunts, arms trembling as she lowers the definitely too heavy barbell.

Competition and all that.

“Ya gonna hurt yaself,” she warns.

“I’m _fine,”_ Wynonna retorts, though Nicole has to spot her last few bench presses.

“Ya ain’t have to be embarrassed,” Nicole smirks.

“I’m not embarrassed, Schwarzenegger,” Wynonna rolls her eyes, “Christ, why did you have to join my gym, anyways?” she wonders aloud, breathing heavily as sweat runs down her neck. “There are so many other gyms”.

Nicole laughs.

“There are two other gyms, and one of ‘em definitely requires tetanus shots”.

Wynonna wipes her brow.

“As if I’d ever get lucky enough for you to get tetanus,” she replies.

***

It’s nice, having something to do other than mope around her house and curse the snow and the cold for treating her garden so badly.

***

Sometimes, when Nicole is feeling too blue and the sky looks too gray, she sits in her room and she tries to read about plants and about the earth.

She tries, of course, because she cannot stop wondering what Waverly Earp is doing. If she’s alright, if she’s lost weight, too.

If she feels like her muscles and her veins have been exposed to the cold.

Those days, she worries about herself the same way she’d worried about her mother, because there is too much dependence and too much inaction, and it’s so frustrating and so god damned ridiculous, that she suffers so very much for something with so little meaning.

At least for Waverly Earp.

***

It’s cold, one evening, when Waverly Earp calls her.

Nicole stares at the picture of her and her tomatoes for a moment before she breathes in and picks up the phone.

“Hey,” she greets, as if having said the first word could protect her from the uncanniness of Waverly.

“Hey, Nicole,” Waverly says, and her name sounds like a blessing, “are you busy?”

Nicole snorts.

“Ain’t ever busy on winter,” she replies lightly, hoping healing means forgiving.

There’s silence for a while.

“Can you come pick me up?” Waverly asks.

Nicole throws on her jacket, shoving her feet inside her doc martens haphazardly.

“Where are ya?” she asks.

And of course Waverly says she’s home.

***

There’s a tiny little thing sat on the porch, and Nicole thinks of many seasons ago, when she’d seen the exact same thing, and the little thing stands up and walks over to her car, small feet sinking in the snow.

She opens the door, and it’s cold.

“Ya must be freezin’,” she says softly.

Waverly only shivers, and Nicole feels wings fluttering against sharp blade when she sniffs.

Nicole looks at her, and her eyes are red and puffy.

“Hey,” she starts, “what happened?”

Waverly shakes her head, a silent plea to be anywhere but where she is, and Nicole quickly checks for evident ghosts of herself before she drives away.

***

“Did he do somethin’?” as Waverly presses play on the cd Nicole had been listening to.

Fleet Foxes _Crack-up._

Ironic, really.

“No,” she breathes out, “just… said some things”.

Nicole drives aimlessly as she waits.

“Nicole?” Waverly asks quietly.

“Yeah?”

Waverly breathes in.

“Why can’t my dad just… love me?” she asks, and Nicole’s bones are too sharp and too strong.

She locks her jaw.

“’cause he’s an idiot”.

Waverly chuckles.

“I guess I don’t make it too easy,” she says, ignoring Nicole’s comment.

Nicole laughs, loud and careless, and Waverly looks over at her with wide eyes.

“Sorry,” she grins, “it’s just… ya make it _too_ easy, Waverly,” she says, because who cares about anything when it is cold and late and so very grim.

Waverly just stares at her, eyes filled with something unrecognizable, and they’re Venus glimmering amongst stars.

“Ya always so damn worried about the _wrong_ kinda love,” Nicole says softly, “about the _wrong_ kinda people”.

Waverly sighs.

“I know”.

Nicole lets silence embrace them, and it’s less scary, this time.

When they reach a gas station, she tells Waverly she’s getting her something warm to drink, she’s still shivering, and she wills herself not to look back at the girl sitting inside her truck as she walks inside the convenience store.

***

They sit in the truck, parked in a random road Nicole had never seen before, and they sip on liquid warmth.

Waverly Earp’s presence is warmer.

“Ya can’t love everyone ‘n everyone won’t love ya,” Nicole tells her, and it’s a little sudden, even to herself, but Waverly does not look surprised.

She wonders if she’s being too harsh.

“I think I’m starting to figure that out”.

Nicole laughs.

“With age comes wisdom, Miss Waverly”.

To her infinite healing and to her infinite doom, Waverly giggles a sweet little giggle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on how easy it is to commit felony and how hard it is to get over pretty girls


	24. Chapter 24

20.

Nicole had never struggled with who she was.

Not in terms of sexuality, anyways. She’d struggled to belong and to understand the world around her and to accept that not everyone was but a shell of a human being.

Maybe she just had bigger problems, or maybe she just got lucky, really, but it’d been easy, knowing what she liked and how she loved.

As she shares warm silence with Waverly, it dawns on her that ease is not as universal as she’d like it to be.

***

“Rosie?” Nicole says, opening a packet of raw sugar and allowing only half of it’s contents to fall into her foam cup. 

The free coffee at Purgatory’s community college was positively disgusting.

“Hm?” Rosita hums, momentarily looking up from her chemistry textbook. 

“How ya mom deal with ya bein’ queer?” she asks quietly, stirring the lukewarm coffee.

Rosita puts down her book. 

“Shouldn’t you have asked me that, like, years ago?” she asks with an easy smile.

Nicole shrugs.

“My mom doesn’t know,” Rosita says.

Nicole furrows her brow.

“Whaddaya mean she don’t know?” she asks.

Rosita laughs.

“I mean I never felt like telling her,” she shrugs, “when I was with Doc, I didn’t really see any reason to, and now…” she huffs, “I guess I just don’t know how she’d react. She has enough on her plate”.

What strange kind of kindness emcompasses hiding away in the dark?

Nicole feels a little embarrased, really. Her world is so one dimensional, sometimes.

“I didn’t know that”.

Rosita rests her hand on Nicole’s knee.

“It’s alright,” she shrugs, “it doesn’t bother me”.

“Ya think I did wrong?” Nicole asks quietly.

“What?”

“With Waverly,” Nicole says, allowing herself to cherish Rosita’s thumb as it drags over her jeans. “Tellin’ Wynonna ‘n all”.

Rosita sighs a tired sigh.

“I won’t ever get you for myself, uh?” she asks with a playful smirk.

Nicole feels the tips of her ears warm and redden.

“I wouldn’t have liked it, to be honest,” she shrugs, “if you’d done it to me. But I get it”.

The thing about being known for being kind is that it’s just that much harder to accept that constancy is a skittish little bug, and it bites.

***

She lays in bed and she thinks about scarlet stained sheets and she worries about how hard it is to wash blood stains out.

***

“God, you drive like an old lady,” Wynonna grunts, playing with the strings of her jumper.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Ya can’t complain when ya gettin’ a ride,” she retorts, annoyed at the way her jumper sticks to her sweaty skin and a little too uncomfortable with the idea of Waverly seeing her like this.

She wonders if she smells okay. 

Maybe okay is too hopeful, really. Bearable should do.

“I’m getting a ride because my truck exploded,” Wynonna huffs.

Nicole snorts.

“Have ya ever  _ not  _ exaggerated?” she asks as she swerves into the Earp driveway. “It just overheated ‘cause ya ain’t know how to treat a car nicely”.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say you’re an idiot,” Wynonna bites back.

Nicole would die before she said it, but she liked the commitment they’d created with each other. It felt a little like it did in High School, the sweating and the teasing and the competing.

The love, too.

She’s not too concerned about love when they step out of her truck, though, Wynonna grumbling about wanting pizza and how Waverly was being a dick about something Nicole was sure was Wynonna’s fault, because as she walks up to the house for the first time in quite a long time, she slips on the ice, sliding forward for what feels like an infinity before she loses her balance and falls on her ass.

Because god is dead and the earth is hell, Wynonna laughs like a maniac and Nicole feels her cheeks redden as she tries to stand up, clothes wet and freezing, and she shivers even more when the front door opens and Waverly looks out, maybe recognizing the sound of the engine or maybe just wondering what the fuck is wrong with her sister. 

Nicole considers just laying there in the snow, maybe burrowing herself deeper, but her clothes are damper by the second and she can barely feel her fingers, so she slowly stands up, careful not to make a damn fool of herself again.

“Shut up,” she grumbles, punching Wynonna in the shoulder.

She laughs.

Waverly rushes forward, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket, and Nicole wants nothing more than to wrap herself with her, to create a cocoon and pretend there is no snow and no pure white.

“Are you okay?” she asks, and Nicole kind of admires the clear effort required for her not to laugh.

Nicole only grumbles, shivering as she walks inside.

***

She pulls off her jumper. It’s damp, a mess of sweat and snow and a little bit of dirt, and she grimaces as it sticks to her back. She thinks of fucking a girl she no longer loved, once upon a time, as she puts the cold fabric down on the counter, and she cannot help but think about fucking a girl she had never not loved.

The world is funny that way.

Nicole never liked the Homestead’s bathroom: it was always too cold, and the walls were bare and sterile, simple toothbrushes sitting miles away from each other. The only thing she liked was the infinite collection of hair products she just knew belonged to Waverly. Nicole can’t help but think of her own bathroom, which is a little strange. She thinks of her blue toothbrush, hanging from a frog shaped hanger right next to Nedley’s pink toothbrush, in it’s rooster hanger.

(he’d bought the rooster for her, originally, but she explained roosters were not chickens and she was still young, at the time, young enough to pretend she did not feel her teeth ache with the sweetness of being called chicken by the man she loved the most).

Nicole shivers, goosebumps taking over her flesh, and her reflection stares back, bare stomach shimmering with it’s ghostly paleness under the too-bright lights, skin taut and tense as she breathes in the iciness of it all, a black sports bra and black boxers the only thing keeping her from baring herself to the same walls which had the pleasure of admiring one Waverly Earp at her most vulnerable.

It’s a little lascivious and a little debauched, thinking of her like that, but Nicole was never very good at denying herself, and she is truly unsure if her nipples strain against black fabric because of the cold or because of the heat. 

Nicole picks up the light pink towell Waverly had handed her after snapping it against Wynonna’s ass, who would not stop laughing at Nicole as she shivered, and she sighs in relief as she starts to dry her skin, despite the fact that she is no longer cold.

The warmth gets worse, too, because the towel smells like Waverly, and it’s funny, how so much more  _ erotic  _ this feels than when her fingers were buried in someone else’s cunt.

The towell is a holy shroud, and she wraps it around herself, core too tight and toes too numb for her to do much of anything anymore. 

Her teeth clatter and her muscles contract around nothingness and the burn of being too hot and too cold is so infuriatingly disorienting that she barely notices she’s no longer alone. But she does, of course, because Waverly Earp’s presence demands it.

And Nicole starts sweating, because how can she  _ not,  _ when hungry little eyes take in inch after inch after inch of her skin, and the salt water sizzles and evaporates and comes right back to rain down on them.

There is no time and no space and no nothing except for the way Waverly stares at her like she is Cratus personified, all raw power and dominance and delectable beauty.

Nicole realizes with the dawning dread she’s so accustomed to that Waverly’s desire is hydrogen to her roots.

Waverly shakes her head, as if emerging from deep waters.

“Uh,” she mumbles, eyes focused on black fabric, “sorry”.

Her cheeks are ripe cherry, ready to be picked.

Nicole licks her lips, hand gripping the pink towel with a grip so strong her palm aches. There had been a moment, though she knew not when, where she’d allowed the towell to fall away from her shoulders. 

“It’s alright,” she replies, voice low and hungry.

She’s not sure if Waverly is listening, really, and she doesn’t really mind, because there’s a certain joy in the retribution, a painful glee in baring her soft firmness to the only one she’d ever really care to bare herself to. There’s overzealous dismissal in the way she moves, in the way she breathes deliberate breaths which raise her chest and firm her stomach and flex her arms.

And Waverly drinks it all in.

And maybe she can be the devil, too.

“Ya starin’,” she comments, because she’s no longer sixteen years old and she knows what desire is. 

The cherries are so ripe Nicole is sure she needs only to blow against them and they’d fall right off their tree.

“Sorry, I-”,” Waverly tries again, shaking her head fiercely, and her eyes finally meet Nicole’s. They’re not forest or planets or moss.

They’re greed and lust and coal.

“Sorry,” she says again, handing Nicole a pair of sweatpants and a black jumper. “The sweats are… they’re Wynonna’s. I don’t think my- my clothes would fit”.

Nicole stares, and she feels like she’s the one looking down from the heavens, this time. Waverly is but human. 

“The jumper is mine. It’s big, though”.

Nicole had very rarely seen Waverly this nervous, but she knew the endless and pointless rambling meant her skin was on fire. 

Her hand meets Waverly’s through the fabrics, and they both smell burning cotton.

***

“Close your mouth,” Waverly grunts.

Wynonna rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah, Wynonna,” Nicole supplies, “closa ya damn mouth”.

Wynonna opens it, of course, chewing loudly on the pepperoni pizza, though Nicole would not be able to tell what it was by the gross mass inside her mouth.

“Quit bein’ gross!” she says, kicking Wynonna’s shin. 

Wynonna only laughs.

Nicole picks up her third slice, removing almost half of the broccoli pieces on it, and she places them down on her plate. A second later, Waverly picks them up, shoving them in her mouth before she puts down the crust of her pizza slice on Nicole’s plate.

For some reason, the little game Waverly had created with her was based on the absurd inflation of pizza crust prices, and Nicole was only rewarded with them when she handed at least five pieces of broccoli over.

It was sweet and tangy and lovely, really, giving and taking and the ghosts of lips and kisses turned into nurture.

“I can’t believe you two are ganging up on me again,” Wynonna sighs, “I should just leave John Wayne here and move in with Ronald Reagan”.

Nicole snorts.

“Now ya ain’t even  _ tryin’,”  _ she says, “that ain’t sound like Randy Nedley”.

“That’s because you’re deaf and also an idiot,” Wynonna replies with a shrug.

Waverly slaps her thigh.

(Nicole had missed this like she’d miss her own limbs).

“Besides, I smell better and I wouldn’t get dirt all over the house”.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Ya smell like beer and puke ‘n ya never do ‘em dishes,” she retorts.

Waverly hums her agreement. 

“How did you find him?” she asks.

Nicole looks over at her pretty little face. 

“I mean, you didn’t live here, before”.

Before. 

Before her blood turned read and her eyes started seeing, she supposes. 

“He was the only family I knew I had,” she shrugs, “seen his name, knew my mom had a brother. Came here”.

Wynonna is silent, as if she does not trust herself to not make a joke about Nicole’s past.

Nicole appreciates it quite a lot.

Waverly’s light burns blisters on Nicole’s skin.

“You got lucky,” she says, “him being the one to take you in, I mean”.

Waverly speaks with wonder, though their undertone is  _ I did not. _

Nicole supposes there’s only so many seeds she can plant.

“I did,” she smiles.

Because it is true, of course.

***

Luck is a funny thing.

Nicole is not sure that it is the right word. Luck felt like gold-panning, inconsistent and troublesome and so rarely worth it. Nicole could almost feel the mud beneath her feet and the river water as it ran through her fingers as she dug and dug and dug.

Nedley had been quite the big, shiny nugget of pure gold. 

Wynonna, too.

Nicole was not sure if Waverly Earp was gold or Pyrite.

***

“Sir?” Nicole asks, sipping on the coffee Nedley had told her not to drink, it was too late ‘n she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

(she couldn’t sleep, anyways. She had nightmares about drought and fangs and she was constantly haunted by the ghost of Waverly’s touch. The only nights she had no dreams were the dirty, filthy ones when she allowed herself to press her fingers inside her own wetness as she thought of impossible green eyes burning her skin and the sizzling heat of a pretty little mouth.

She hated herself for it).

“Yeah?” he grunts, eyes focused on Friday the 13th, Nicole’s least favorite slasher and Nedley’s absolute favorite slasher.

“What ya reckon I should do on winter?”

He narrows his eyes.

“Whaddaya mean?” he asks with a puzzled look, all tired eyes and ever fraying hair.

“For work. There ain’t no work with this damn snow”.

He grumbles.

“Have ya ever hear ‘bout rest?” he asks her.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“I keep on restin’, my ass gonna stick to the damn couch,” she whines.

He chuckles.

“Ain’t sure, chicken,” he says with affection and with paternal love, “ya the smart one”.

Would ya look at that.

***

Nedley is the calcification of her bones and the soil in which her seeds grow.

***

It’s nearing lunch, and Nicole is stood in front of her mirror, very dignified in the black jumper she refused to return to Waverly, red boxer shorts and the fancy cowboy hat she’d never worn out of sheer fear it’d be somehow ruined.

And with all the dignity in her very core, she makes finger guns at the mirror. 

Her phone beeps, and though she is alone, she feels embarrassment running with it’s sticky thickness against her skin. 

A tomato emoji gets her heart to stop beating, and the words force a jolt of eletricity so it will start right back up.

_ Are you busy today? _

Nicole supposes pretending to be Orville Peck does not count as much of a commitment, so she tells Waverly Earp no, she ain’t.

Waverly starts to type, and then she stops, and then she starts again.

She stops one more time. 

Nicole snickers, and she knows her and she misses her and she loves her.

_ Ya fancy some homemade lunch? _

***

Nicole showers and she puts on perfume, which she only wears on Christmas, and she puts on nice black jeans and a real nice flannel and maybe she’s too hopeful or maybe she’s too devilish or maybe she just loves Waverly and she knows she likes to see people using the gifts she’s given them, so she puts on her black hat.

***

“Thanks for inviting me,” Waverly hums, honey and sour apple.

Nicole smiles, starting the car.

“You’re wearing it,” Waverly points at the hat, and Nicole knows the edge in her voice is warm chocolate sauce over ice cream. 

“I am,” she agrees.

Special occasions and whatnot.

“Everythin’ alright?” she asks, just in case.

Waverly hums.

“Yeah. I just… wanted to see you”.

There’s a small, soft little hand gripping her windpipe with all it’s might.

Nicole smiles.

“There ain’t nothin’ good at home,” she says, because she does not like danger, “we doin’ some groceries, first”.

Waverly opens her pretty little mouth and Nicole looks away from the sun and down at the road.

“Anything’s fine,” Waverly says, “I don’t want to bother you”.

Uh.

Would you look at that.

“Ya ain’t,” Nicole says, “I’m out of tobacco, anyways”.

That’s a lie. Nicole has two unopened packages from the nice, fancy brand Doc and her liked, which he had given to her.

***

Nicole pushes the cart and tries very, very hard not to look at Waverly’s ass. 

She’s a gentleman, see.

(she cannot help herself, of course, and it’s ridiculous, how easy it is for Waverly to pull her down down down until she’s nothing but slick warmth and desperation).

“What do ya want for lunch?” Nicole asks, eyes darting towards the meat session, “some fish?”

Waverly shrugs, picking at her nails, and Nicole frowns.

“What?”

Waverly stops walking, and because Nicole’s limited brain is focused on trying to figure out why she looks upset and how not to look at her ass, it cannot access the change of pace, and she bumps the cart against Waverly’s back.

Just like god damned Danny Zuko, uh. 

“Shit,” she groans, “sorry!”

Waverly only giggles.

“You know what I’ve been thinking?” she asks.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“I don’t think I want to eat corpses anymore”.

Nicole thinks that’s kinda gross, calling it that.

Not untrue, she supposes.

“Uh,” she hums, intelligent as she is.

“I want to be a vegan,” Waverly says like it’s a secret.

Nicole knows what that means, gardening forums talk a lot about that kind of thing.

“Really?” she asks, resting her elbows on the cart’s handle.

“Since I was fifteen,” Waverly nods, “I tried, once, but daddy said it was stupid and wouldn’t get me the food I wanted and Bobo threatened to shove raw meat inside my locker because he thought it’d be funny”.

Nicole had never been happier at the ugly crookedness of his nose.

“Glad I kicked his ass, then,” she supplies with a smirk.

Waverly snorts.

“Homegrown gardens help a lot when one wants to maintain a plant-based diet,” Nicole echoes the fancy quote she’d read somewhere, because Waverly is smart and she wants to be, too.

Waverly Earp smiles her bright little smile, and she’s back to being Nicole’s Alectrona. The shift twists Nicole’s bones.

“I could help ya plant some other stuff,” she shrugs.

Waverly is only the moon and the stars and the vast nothingness of the universe, then.

“You’d do that?” she asks, only a whisper.

Nicole only laughs.

She’d bleed herself to death if it meant Waverly would not die of thirst.

“Well then,” Nicole tips her hat, “what’s somethin’ vegan we can have for lunch?”

Waverly looks up at her quizzically.

“What?” 

Nicole smiles.

“Ya startin’ bein’ vegan,” she aids, pushing the cart forward again. 

“We don’t- You don’t have to!” Waverly says, tiny legs struggling to keep up with Nicole’s pace.

“Ya say ya wanna be vegan, Miss Waverly,” Nicole grins, “then ya gonna be it”.

***

It is sweet and fresh clementines, helping Waverly be who she wants to be, and for the first time in a whole year, Nicole thinks it may not be too hard, being friends, if it means the sour and the sweet will still tickle her tongue.

***

When they get home and bake a vegan lasagna, Waverly all wide eyes and eternal wonder over top hats and caramel apples, Nicole knows she cannot bring herself to stop giving, because to give is to love and the red cells in her blood were made of fresh basil and too-hot coffee welcoming you inside and the very first tomato Waverly Earp had grown.

Nicole was a wild thing, you see, and to love is to act on instinct, after all.

***

When they sit on Nicole’s room, stomachs full of something which is not food, Nicole can’t help but smile.

“I’m sorry,” she says, lips still quirked up.

Waverly looks back from the records.

“What?”

Nicole chuckles.

“I’m sorry about telling Wynonna ‘n I’m sorry I couldn’t get ya just wasn’t ready. It ain’t fair,” she shrugs, “not everyone has Nedley for a parent”.

Waverly looks like she will either cry or she will laugh. 

She closes her eyes, breathing in the words as one breathes in smoke, and she lets them out again.

“Thank you,” she says simply.

Nicole wants nothing else.

“I’m sorry, too,” Waverly whispers, holding onto Johnny Cash as if he can save her, “for being so… insensitive”.

Nicole huffs out a chuckle.

“I didn’t know”.

Nicole feels the tide hitting against her body, and she is not stone.

“Didn’t know what?” she asks.

Waverly shrugs.

“That you actually… liked me, I guess”.

Nicole likes cucumbers and Nicole likes Pepsi and Nicole likes god damned parmesan cheese.

“I wish it was just messin’ ‘round for me, too,” Nicole says with a shrug and a sigh, “guess I’m too damn sticky”. 

She does not think it’s funny, but Waverly chuckles anyways.

“You’re not like them,” Waverly unearths a buried treasure, “I meant it, you know. I care about you too much”.

Nicole wishes she would stop loving her so wrong.

“Ya gonna be fine,” she tells Waverly, because she cannot say the same about herself.

Waverly nods, slow and deliberate.

“I guess I am”.

***

There’s beauty and there’s relief in seeing something holy admit it has committed a sin.

Or maybe Waverly is not holy, after all, but sinful.

Nicole is not sure if that would make much of a difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nicole: fuck this bitch  
> nicole, two days later: i want to make love to this beautiful woman


	25. Chapter 25

20.

Nicole still does not enjoy the mall.

She still does not like crowds, and being in places this open and this obvious always makes her a little nervous her father will appear out of nowhere with a needle in one hand and a gun in the other.

The thing about running is that it’s never really over. You either run and run and run or you’re caught.

But she loves Rosita, so she agrees to pick her up and go shopping, since, according to the soon-to-be scientist, she will need a nice pair of strong arms to hold her shopping bags.

Nicole always did like feeling useful.

***

“Ain’t that too…  _ tight?”  _ Nicole asks, brow furrowed as she tries to understand how exactly Rosita is still breathing inside the dress.

“Don't be a prude,” Rosita retorts with a smirk.

“Ain’t ‘bout that,” Nicole grumbles, “ya look a lil’ blue, ‘s all”.

Rosita laughs, easy and lovely, and Nicole smiles.

“Have you ever worn a dress?” Rosita asks curiously, eyebrow raised in premature defiance.

Nicole snorts, handing Rosita the next dress off the enormous pile on her lap.

“Nah,” she says, “‘n don’t even try”.

Rosita pokes her head out from inside the fitting room, pouting.

“Ya can’t do nothin’ in ‘em,” Nicole rolls her eyes, “I’d rather die than wear one”.

She does not think she’s being dramatic.

“Don’t be dramatic,” she hears Rosita huff, “I think you’d look cute”.

Maybe Nicole is a little devilish or maybe she’s just growing up, because she smirks.

“Ya always think I’m cute,” she says to the sterile door of the fitting room.

A moment later, it opens, and Nicole has to admit Rosita is awful pretty.

“Don’t get too cocky, Haught,” Rosita tuts with a smile.

Nicole thinks of banana plants and of carrots.

***

“I said I was sorry,” Nicole tells her, trying to balance the three shopping bags on a single arm as she holds onto her cup of pepsi.

Rosita takes advantage of her lack of available limbs to shove a paper Burger King crown on her head, laughing as Nicole only huffs.

“Sorry about what?” she asks, still grinning.

“To Waverly,” she grunts, trying to shake off the crown, “‘bout outin’ ‘n all”.

Rosita sighs, heavy and playful.

“God, will I have one day with you for myself?” she asks dreamily, settling down the tray of burgers atop an empty table and helping Nicole put down the bags.

Nicole shrugs apologetically as she sits down on the greasy chair of the food court.

She  _ hates  _ shopping malls.

“I’m just sayin’,” Nicole replies, “just so ya know”.

Rosita huffs.

“Well I’m  _ glad  _ you’re friends with her again, you big baby,” Rosita says, “you even put on a little weight,” she sighs.

Nicole looks at her curiously, nervously fidgeting with her burger’s wrapper.

“You really are fucked, aren’t you?” Rosita asks finally, a sad smile adorning her pretty face.

Nicole just nods.

“I really am fucked, ain’t I?” she echoes.

Rosita snorts.

“Are you two…?” Rosita nudges, pensively chewing on her fries.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“We two what?” she asks. 

Rosita makes a very crude motion, then, index and thumb forming a circle as she shoves in a fry.

Nicole’s pepsi goes straight up to her nose.

“We wasn’t ever fuckin’!” she whines, a little too loud, “stop it!” she groans as Rosita just laughs, fry going back and forth and back again.

“You’re too easy,” she grins. 

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“It wasn’t like that,” she grumbles.

Rosite arches an eyebrow.

“Prude,” she whispers.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Well, it ain’t matter,” she huffs, “we’re just friends. For real, this time”.

Rosita considers it.

“Because you want to be just friends?” she asks, and it’s less a question and more a dare.

Nicole swallows her burger and takes a second bite before answering.

“Because I need to be just friends,” she says quietly. “‘N she wants to be just friends”.

A moment passes when the only thing she registers is the white noise of dozens of strangers going on about their life and their love and their everything and the foul, industrial smell of fast food. 

“I can’t be with her if she ain’t ready to be with me,” Nicole shrugs.

Rosita’s eyes are a pretty color, she notices. 

Caramel, soft and yielding. Something about the ease of melted sugar, she supposes.

“You know,” Rosita starts carefully, “letting her go means letting her  _ go”. _

Nicole is not sure what that means.

***

Sometimes, when she’s alone and it’s a little too cold and she’s made too much food for dinner, she tries to imagine what it’d be like, for her to turn her head just the slightest bit when Rosita kissed her cheek, if she allowed her to give in to what she knew the girl wanted.

But she supposes it is not fair, really.

She knows the bitterness of giving your soul away to someone who does not want to keep it. She knows it a little too well.

Sometimes, she wonders if Waverly Earp is really a god deserving of her reverence.

***

The snow starts to melt away, but it does not feel like spring.

***

“Ya sign up for college?” Nicole asks, cigarette hanging from her lips as she walks Waverly to her truck.

The bad thing about it not being so cold is that Waverly Earp is back to wearing her tiny little clothes again. 

Nicole is weak, and she is human, so she stares at impossibly tanned thighs for a little too long.

She opens the door for the girl, naturally, throwing her backpack on the back before walking around to the driver’s side.

(she carries Waverly’s backpack for her, of course. She’s a gentleman).

“Applied,” Waverly giggles, and there’s no animosity in her tone.

“ _ Applied,”  _ Nicole drawls with a roll of her eyes.

“I did,” Waverly smiles, “stop smoking inside Johanna!”

Nicole huffs, obediently throwing the rest of her cigarette out of the window before starting the car.

(Waverly had chosen the name. 

Nicole had let her).

“I ain’t mind the smell,” she groans, “ya just have to open ‘em windows”.

Waverly huffs.

“Have some respect for her, Nicole,” she retorts.

Nicole’s muscles are taffy, warm and stretching against her skin. 

Waverly chooses  _ Who Needs Who _ , and Nicole is still surprised she has not heard all of her music yet. She was not sure there was anything else to give. Her brow furrows when the first song starts.

“This isn’t country,” she notes.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya think I only hear one type of music?” she asks.

Waverly thinks about it.

“Yeah,” she nods with a pretty, toothy smile which speaks of sunflowers and buzzing bees.

“Well, Miss Waverly, I’ll have ya know I ain’t no backwood churn twister,” she says, accent affected and voice a little too low.

It’s slightly miscalculated, because Waverly does not laugh. 

Nicole looks over at her, and her cheeks are a little too red, and her mouth is a little too open, pretty little lips glistening on the late afternoon sun.

“Ya can’t be serious,” she groans, too  _ amazed  _ to ignore it.

“What?” Waverly whines, a little desperate.

“Ya have a thing for cowboys!” Nicole says in disbelief, chuckling as Waverly starts to sputter on her words, cheeks radiating warmth.

She tries to deny it at first, and Nicole only laughs a little harder, so she huffs with entirely too much indignancy for someone in her position.

“Well, wasn’t that a little  _ obvious?”  _ she grumbles, crossing her arms against her chest.

Nicole raises an eyebrow at her.

“I mean, we were… you’re…” she sighs, “yeah”.

Nicole grins.

“I’m ya type, am I?” she unearths a buried treasure.

There are so many of those, hidden under miles and miles of cold hard soil and tangled around roots so fierce they’re almost vile.

Waverly groans.

“Shut up”.

Nicole lets out a breath.

Nona Marie Invie fills the silence. 

_ Oh to go back to the place when your hands moved over me. _

“We can’t be more than friends,” Nicole says, chalk in hand as she draws a bright red line between her garden and Waverly Earp.

“I know,” Waverly replies, and the way she says it tells Nicole she’s thought about this, too.

Nicole toes at the red line, worn shoes scraping against scarlet.

“I ain’t sure ya do, sometimes,” she says.

She always did appreciate honesty.

“I’m agreeing with you,” Waverly huffs. 

“I need ya to agree _ ,  _ because ya  _ agree,  _ not because it’s what ya think I wanna hear”.

Waverly is annoyed, she knows, her leg bounces up and down and she picks at her nails and Nicole wants to reach out and tell her to be careful with herself.

“I get it, Nicole,” she grunts, “I was a dick. Lesson learned”.

Nicole swallows around cotton.

“Is that why ya think I was… upset? ‘Cause ya was a dick?”

Waverly raises a challenging eyebrow to her.

“Can’t we just be friends?” she tries, “forget about all that?”

Nicole does not think Waverly Earp knows she doesn’t  _ want  _ to forget what it feels like to touch life itself and come out unscathed.

“Ya broke my damn heart, Waverly,” she whispers, because she is so very tired of uncertainty.

She needs to forgive Waverly for the right reasons.

The girl sighs.

“I know,” she hums. 

Maybe she does. She was always smarter than Nicole.

“I ain’t willin’ to be ya plaything,” Nicole adds, because she  _ needs  _ Waverly to know.

“You were never my  _ plaything,”  _ the girl retorts, voice ice and smoke. “I’ve told you that already”.

“Tellin’ me ain’t mean it wasn’t how I felt,” Nicole shrugs. “I ain’t mad, Waves. I just… need ya to understand”.

Waverly picks at her nails.

Nicole reaches out, right hand moving from the gear stick to her soft little hands. She rests her own hand over them, a silent plea for Waverly to know her own worth.

Waverly stops picking at her nails.

“I understand,” she says softly.

There’s nothing else to be said, really. Nicole understands they are two very different plants. 

She cannot help but think of Waverly as a Venus Flytrap, soft and fragile and dangerous with her sweetness and her bright colors and deadly teeth.

***

Going back to work is a blessing.

Nicole feels like that’s who she’s meant to be, calloused hands and dirty fingernails and salty, sweet sweat running down her back with it’s insistent steadiness.

***

The funny thing is that Waverly thinks so, too.

Nicole sips on her hot coffee and she watches the soft butter melt against warm toast as Nedley goes on and on about how Dolls is the most dedicated officer he’s ever met, and she thinks being loved for who you are is a rarity and a truth.

***

“Is Wynonna forcing you to be my driver?” Waverly asks as Nicole opens the door for her.

As if she needed anyone to force her to take Waverly to wherever she needed to go.

“I’m workin’ ‘round here,” she lies, if only a little, “ain’t no problem pickin’ ya up”.

Waverly smiles, and she looks tired.

“Back to work, then?” she asks with a glint of something unrecognizable.

Nicole smiles at her.

“No more god damned snow,” she shrugs.

Spring is only really spring if Waverly Earp is warming her passenger seat and smiling at her as the sun shines against her glossy lips.

“You look more like yourself,” she points out, “all… rugged and… hardworking”.

Nicole laughs an easy laugh. A rarity, near the the Goddess of Sun and Morning.

She chews on the inside of her cheek as she watches Waverly deflate just the slightest, sagging against her seat and rubbing her eyes.

“How’s ya last month of school?” she tries.

Waverly snickers something sharp.

“I can’t wait for it to be over”.

Nicole laughs.

“Ya soundin’ like ya sister,” she comments with a smirk.

Waverly grunts.

“Thought ya liked school,” Nicole says, focused on the road ahead, “ain’t ya their mayor or somethin’?”

Waverly huffs.

“Hardly”.

She riffles through cd cases, a silent  _ shut up  _ directed at Nicole.

Nicole is a young adult and she’s mature and she ain’t give a damn about what Waverly tells her.

(or so she likes to pretend).

“What’s wrong?” she insists.

Waverly sighs.

“Nothing’s  _ wrong,”  _ she rolls her eyes, “I’m just… tired of it. I’m sick of them and sick of pretending I care about Perry’s touchdowns or Stephanie’s boyfriends. They’re so stupid, all of them”.

Nicole chuckles, a little taken aback by the firmness of Waverly’s tone.

“Ya been dyin’ to say all that, uh?”

Waverly just rolls her eyes.

“School sucks, Miss Waverly,” Nicole says solemnly. 

“I used to  _ like  _ it,” she groans.

Nicole laughs, a sticky little sound which reverberates around the truck. Waverly molds herself around it.

“That’s growin’ up for ya”.

Waverly huffs;

“Been doing a lot of that, lately”.

Nicole is so very glad, you see.

***

Nicole pushes her lawn mower, not quite new by now, and she sweats, though the air is cool and the sun is all too shy. 

Her back hurts in a way she does not think a twenty year old back should hurt, but that’s what you get when you embrace manual labour, she supposes.

“Nicole Haught!” yells a too familiar voice, shrill and arrogant.

Nicole smiles.

“What ya doin’ here?” she asks, turning around and spotting Wynonna Earp marching towards her, boots ruining the freshly cut grass.

“Nedley told me you were  _ working,”  _ she replies, her tone implying she does not think gardening is work.

Nicole’s back says otherwise.

“‘N what, ya just drove around until ya found me?” she asks, cocking her hip against the lawn mower with a grin. 

It’s amazing how Wynonna just always kinda seems unemployed and unbothered. 

“The things we do to punch our friends in the face,” Wynonna retorts, eyes shining with something a little too Wynonna for Nicole’s taste.

“Watcha punchin’ me for?” she asks, stepping back defensively.

Wynonna comes to a halt in front of her, and the air is too crisp and too languid to imply any real danger.

“Are you necking my sister again, you degenarate?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

Nicole groans.

“Ain’t neckin’ no one,” she lets out, “why’s everyone always so worried about my goddamn neckin’?” she asks god.

God does not reply.

Wynonna crosses her arms against her chest.

“What?” Nicole asks, eyes a little wide.

“You’re  _ friends  _ again?” Wynonna asks.

Nicole just nods.

“She’s being all  _ annoying  _ again,” Wynonna complains.

“What does that have to do with me?” Nicole asks, restarting the mower.

“She’s only giggly and extra annoying when she’s necking you,” Wynonna says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Would you look at that.

“Let me do it!” she less asks and more announces, pushing Nicole away from the mower’s handle. 

“Ya ain’t gonna do it right,” Nicole groans, but allows it anyways.

“It’s just  _ pushing,  _ Fiona,” Wynonna retorts, “how hard can it be?”

Nicole thinks it’s hard enough for Wynonna not to do it right, which really isn’t saying much.

She says nothing.

“Whatcha said ‘bout gigglin’?” she asks, pretending she’s not interested by fidgeting with her bandana, wrapping it around her wrist with pointless determination.

“God, this motherfucker is heavy,” Wynonna grunts.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Let me do it,” she tries.

Wynonna kicks her away blindly.

“If you can do it, I can do it better,” she bites, and Nicole decides to let her make a fool of herself for a few minutes.

“Gigglin’,” she repeats.

Wynonna groans, loud and entirely too tired.

“Keep it in your pants, Hot Buns,” Wynonna replies, “that’s my baby sister you’re talking about”.

“I ain’t even sayin’ nothin’! _ ”  _ Nicole retorts with exasperation. 

Wynonna manages to get the mower stuck, and Nicole winces as she kicks it over and over again until it resumes it’s movement.

She figures all the grace the Earp family had in store went over to Waverly.

“She’s all big, pouty lips and sighing all over the place. Again,” Wynonna explains. Sort of. “She was like that when you two were shagging behind my back”.

Nicole snorts.

“Ain’t no shaggin’ goin’ on ‘n ya know it,” she retorts.

“Tomato, potato,” Wynonna says, cocking an eyebrow “what’s going on between you two?”

Nicole sighs heavily.

She appreciates Wynonna’s subtlety, really, the way she has of asking if things are okay and if Nicole is not suffering. She never did like being open about her feelings.

“Nothin’!” she grunts, “we friends, ‘s all”.

Wynonna hums a disbelieving hum.

Nicole follows her, occasionally trying to help her cut the grass properly, and Wynonna pushes the mower forwards, occasionally slapping Nicole away.

“Ya miss me, ain’t it?” Nicole grins.

She’s never seen Wynonna Earp work or even  _ move  _ without it being strictly necessary.

Icy, comforting coldness stares back at her, and Wynonna scoffs.

“I’m giving you the big sister talk, Han Solo,” she retorts.

Nicole laughs.

“Ya ain’t even  _ talkin’,”  _ she answers.

Wynonna picks up Nicole’s hat from her head and shoves it on her own.

“I just did, dumbass”.

“That’s all ya got?” Nicole snorts. “Askin’ if we neckin’ again?”

Wynonna sighs, and the sound is swallowed by the dying motor of Nicole’s lawn mower.

“Promise not to get all mopey and skinny and weird again,” she says, resting her elbows against the mower’s handle and grunting when Nicole gets her hat back.

She thinks she needs the extra protection.

“Ain’t promisin’ nothin’ I ain’t sure I can keep,” she returns, hands too cold and stomach too tight around bile.

It rises and rises and rises.

“You’re still… in love with her”.

Wynonna is not asking.

“I am,” Nicole agrees, because it feels good, really, admitting the purpose to why her lungs breathe in oxygen and let out CO2.

Wynonna toes at a small little pile of grass blades. 

“She’s growing up, you know?” she says finally. “I’m trying to… to be her sister. Her older sister,” Wynonna scoffs, “I never really… realized how much she needed it”.

Nicole smiles.

If Waverly Earp is Alectrona, she supposes Wynonna Earp is Nike.

Sisterhood is so immense and comforting in it’s complexity.

“Ya doin’ good, ya know?” she says, “ain’t everyone willin’ to be their sister’s parent”.

Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“I’m hardly even her sister”.

Nicole allows herself to punch Wynonna on the shoulder with lightness and with love.

“Ya her mom ‘n her dad ‘n her sister,” Nicole says, “ain’t always gonna be a good one, but ya are”.

Wynonna smiles a small smile.

“I wish my dad wasn’t a shit-eater”.

Nicole laughs.

“I wish ya dad wasn’t a shit-eater ‘n I wish mine wasn’t an addict,” she says with an inappropriate smile.

She supposes life being disgraceful is a little funny.

“At least you have Nedley,” Wynonna tells her.

“At least you have Waverly and she has you, too”.

Wynonna groans.

“I hate it when you’re right, you know?”

Nicole scoffs.

“Sorry,” she slaps Wynonna away from the mower with her bandana, “ain’t happen often, though”.

Wynonna laughs, allowing Nicole to return to her rightful place.

“She loves you, you know?” she says, and the impact of the words is the only thing which allows Nicole to hear them over the sound of the engine.

Nicole looks over her shoulder at the iceberg that is Wynonna Earp and she watches as she melts.

“I know,” she shrugs, “I just ain’t know if she loves me how I want her to”.

Honesty is such a pretty thing, she thinks.

It’s made of jasmine and passionfruit and dill. 

***

“Beer or whiskey?” Nicole asks, feet propped up on Waverly’s bed as she watches the girl riffling through endless piles of paper.

She was in, of course, and she needed to gather all the documents needed to register in Purgatory’s Community College. 

She was not very excited about it, either, but Wynonna had promised she’d make enough money to pay for her master’s somewhere else, and Nicole had gotten her five grocery bags filled with vegan food. That’d cheered her up a little.

Waverly taps her pen against her chin.

“Both,” she concludes, “but 75% beer, it’s cheaper”.

“Ya ain’t have to worry bout that,” Nicole reminds her.

(because friendship is the unrelenting growth of bamboo, Dolls and Wynonna and Doc and Nicole had all spent the last two months gathering money so they could pay for a proper party for Waverly. BYOB was unfashionable, Wynonna had said.

Rosita had probably even less money than Waverly, so she offered to mix drinks and help out with the decoration.

The day they told Waverly about it, a few beers in and a lot of Doritos destroyed, she’d excused herself for ten minutes before returning with red eyes.

The thing about family is that it is so rarely made of blood and so often made of warm coffee and cold beer and unintentional knowing).

“Well, most of them drink beer anyways. Oh, and vodka! Rosita said she’d need vodka”.

Nicole writes it all down with her terrible handwriting, hoping Wynonna and Dolls will be able to discern any of it when they go out to buy the party supplies.

In some strange way, it feels like Wynonna is making up for missed birthdays. 

“You guys really don’t have to,” she says, “Bobo’s throwing his own-”

Nicole scoffs.

“I ain’t lettin’ ya celebrate ya graduatin’ in top of ya class in that idiot’s house”.

He’d lost a year, gone back to Waverly’s class. Nicole had enjoyed the fact that he’d spent an extra year in hell.

Waverly blushes.

“Thank you,” she says simply, because it is all that needs to be said. 

Nicole smiles.

“Ain’t nothin’ ya don’t deserve”.

Waverly scoffs.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” she says, smiling a sad little smile.

Nicole admires the swaying of green shadows as they dance accross tanned skin, life upon life upon infinite life.

“Ya do, Waverly Earp,” she says, “ya deserve the god damned world, but it ain’t deserve ya”.

Waverly looks at her, really looks, green eyes leaves and stems and roots tangling themselves around Nicole’s bones.

“You always… encouraged me,” she says, picking at her nails, “to be better”.

Nicole smiles. How can she not.

“‘cause I knew ya were. I know ya are”.

“How?” Waverly asks, “How did I break your heart and treat you like shit and you’re still so  _ fucking  _ kind?”

Nicole laughs.

“‘cause it ain’t about me, Waverly,” she shrugs, “I ain’t need ya to be good ‘cause I want ya to be with me. I want ya to be good ‘cause I know ya are”.

“ _ How?” _ Waverly sighs, “sometimes I don’t even know it myself”.

She’s such a pretty little thing.

Nicole breathes in the smell of ginger and jasmine and honeycomb.

“‘cause all ya four tomatoes are still here ‘n real big” she smiles. “‘cause ya gave me medicine ‘n chocolate ‘n water when ya friend kicked my ass. ‘Cause when my head was poundin’ after he got in a fight with me ‘n Wynonna,” she lets out ginger and jasmine and honeycomb, “ya walked in ‘n it didn’t hurt no more”.

There was no pain in a world shared with Waverly Earp.

There was no hurt that was not inflicted by her soft little hands.

Because I love you, she wants to say. Because I love you and I trust the little bird that is my heart enough to know it knows nothing but love and kindness and warmth, and you were made of honey and you have made the sun. 

But Waverly needs a friend, and she needs Waverly, so she tells her she has to go home, Nedley needs her, and she kisses hair that is silk and leaves the Goddess of the Sun to understand that not even her creation is always there and is always warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this odissey is nearing it's end.  
> I think so, anyways.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i created a spotify playlist with inspo songs for this little guy. check it out if you'd like. https://open.spotify.com/user/9vkms67zrphdo9ybx53ar9epf/playlist/3NdaUFzt3uRAfJBOprlNvB?si=XY8_b6liRhW0zISO2KDNWQ




“Nedley, sir!” Nicole yells, bare feet thumping down the hallway. “Sir!”

She throws his door open, welcomed by the unwelcomed sigh of him in only his boxers as he rubs his eyes.

“What?” he grunts.

“Sir!” she yells again, just for good measure.

“What is it, damn it?” he groans, shoving his feet inside old sandals.

“I need fancy clothes,” she tells him vehemently.

He blinks.

“What ya need ‘em for?” he asks.

Nicole notices his thin hair is still in place, but his mustache is unruly.

“Waverly’s graduatin’ on Friday,” she reminds him.

He rolls his eyes.

“Ya didn’t wear no fancy clothes for ya graduation but ya wear ‘em for Waverly’s?”

Nicole stares at him with narrowed eyes.

“Yes, sir”.

He snorts, shaking his head.

“Ya a damn fool, ya know that?” he asks her.

She does, of course.

“I know, sir,” she nods, “gettin’ ‘em anyways”.

He grumbles something, sound muffled as he rubs his face fiercely.

“Why ya tellin’ me? Ya got ya own damn money”.

Nicole huffs.

“Just lettin’ ya know, old man”.

He smiles and he hugs her and it’s a nice morning.

***

“Rosita?” Nicole stage-whispers.

Rosita looks around the college’s cafeteria. 

“Rosita!” Nicole says a little louder.

Rosita spots her, raising her hands in what Nicole can only assume means  _ what the fuck are you doing here? _

She beckons her closer, and Rosita rolls her eyes before grabbing her nearly empty tray.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, “how did you even know I was here?”

Nicole shakes her head.

“Ain’t matter,” she sighs, “ya gotta help me”.

Rosita raises her eyebrows.

“What’s wrong?”

“I ain’t know what fancy clothes to buy for Waverly’s graduation”.

Rosita laughs so loud the students on the cafeteria stare back at her. Nicole feels her cheeks turn into tiny little furnaces.

“Stop laughin’ at me!” she groans, “I ain’t ever worn nothin’ fancy!”

Rosita doesn’t stop laughing, of course.

“You-” she takes a deep breath, “you wore  _ jeans  _ at your own graduation but you need fancy clothes for  _ Waverly’s?” _

Hell, why can’t people understand she loves Waverly more than she loves chlorophyll and hydrogen?

“I ain’t care about mine,” she rolls her eyes, “but Waverly’s the Valedictorian!”

Rosita smiles with a mixture of pride and of longing.

“Alright, you dumbass,” she groans, “but you’re buying me dinner and ice cream”.

Nicole can live with that.

***

“Any chance I can get you in a dress?” Rosita asks, listening to the radio and ignoring Nicole’s wide collection of cds.

Nicole scoffs.

“In ya damn dreams”.

***

Nicole likes that Rosita’s eyes go a little wide when she comes out of the fitting room in dark blue slacks and a black button up, and she likes that she has to take a moment before saying Nicole should take them.

***

“Thanks for comin’,” Nicole smiles, watching Rosita patiently remove the pumpkin seeds from her salad, “ya know, ya can just order it without ‘em”.

Rosita rolls her eyes.

“I  _ did  _ order it without seeds, they just didn’t care”.

Nicole snorts. 

“Can’t believe Waves is graduating,” Rosita hums, “she always seemed so much younger than us”.

Nicole shrugs.

“That’s time for ya”.

Rosita grunts. 

“I think I liked you more when you weren’t so brazen”.

Such a strange thing to say about her.

***

“Ready to go?” asks Nedley, fixing his uniform tie.

Nicole is not ready to go.

In fact, she’d rather stay at home and not have to risk Waverly not liking her outfit.

Brazen and all that.

“I guess,” she shrugs, Orville Peck’s hat giving her a small ounce of confidence.

“Ya look real nice, chicken,” Nedley snorts, “Waverly’s gonna think ya look handsome”.

Nicole feels the tips of her ears heat up against fire-red hair. 

“Shut it, old man,” she grunts, and he laughs all the way to the car.

***

It’s strange, returning to the gymnasium which’d taught her what friendship could be. 

It’s particularly strange to return and hear the sound of her chukka boots echoing around the still mostly empty place, to hold her head high in slacks and button ups and fancy hats where she’d so often felt demeaned by her old shoes and her too big clothes and her lanky limbs. 

Before leaving her house, she’d told Timothy his other mom was graduatin’, top of her class ‘n all. He was large, now, and not really  _ a  _ Timothy anymore, but quite a few of ‘em, bushy and taking over each other’s space to create a mess of green.

Growing is strange.

Nedley excuses himself, grunting something about Lucado and graffiti and how he wasn’t even working right now, and she walks by strangers and familiar faces until she hears music and spots honey.

Waverly Earp is not quite the sun. It is definite and straight and not beautiful, not truly. She’s something else, something bigger, a galaxy with black holes and neutron stars and terrifying planets.

And she is so very pretty in her little black dress and her hair all made up and Nicole feels her tongue turn into a knife as it slashes against the inside of cheeks. She walks, feet heavy and weak and she feels herself sweating.

“Miss Waverly,” she greets, interrupting a discussion between her and Wynonna that is most definitely pointless.

Because she is a gentleman, she takes off her hat as Waverly spins around.

And she’s all black and tan skin and eternal softness and eyes glowing with feral affection and Nicole is not sure if she’s still alive.

“Ya ain’t wearin’ ya gown,” she says stupidly, and she tries to ignore the way the hat in her hands trembles against her stomach.

“You aren’t wearing jeans,” Waverly smiles.

Nicole feels too warm, so she shoves the hat back on her head as if it can protect her from the destruction of Pompeii.

“Ya look real pretty,” she says, or rather, she allows her throat to be braver than herself.

“You look really nice, too,” Waverly says, greenery moving over well-pressed clothes, “handsome”.

The blade is still there, tucked between Nicole’s ribs, and it’s too cold against her bones. Nicole is sure Waverly could just reach out with her soft little hands and crack her ribcage open.

She feels like she already has.

“You two need a broom closet or something?” Wynonna grumbles, holding Waverly’s gown and crumpling the fabric.

“We aren’t-” Waverly starts.

“Ya can’t-” Nicole grunts desperately.

Waverly huffs and Nicole groans. 

Sometimes, Nicole is surprised by how they’re not much more than two awkward hearts beating faster and faster and faster.

By the grace of the lord, Dolls appears out of thin air, pressing a warm kiss to Waverly’s temple and nodding at Nicole before he settles beside Wynonna, never quite touching.

“You clean up really nice, Haught,” he says with an edge of humour entirely unfamiliar to his voice. “No jeans, this time?”

What is it with people and jeans.

“Why y’all so damn pressed ‘bout my god damned jeans?”

Waverly rests her soft, feathery hand on Nicole’s hip.

“He’s just messing with you,” she says, “spending too much time with Wynonna”.

Wynonna scoffs.

“I  _ wish  _ I was as big an influence as you guys think I am,” she groans, “you’re my sister and are still the valedictorian”.

Nicole thinks it’s quite impressive how she says it like it’s a bad thing but manages to paint her voice with bright pink pride. 

Waverly rolls her eyes, and Nicole notices her eyeshadow is dark blue.

They’re matching, she realizes.

Would you look at that.

***

Nicole is proud of quite a few things. 

She’s proud of herself, for one.

She likes the person she has become and she likes her power to give life and she likes that she has managed to come out of concrete and turn herself into a forest. 

But pride had always felt like vanity and had always tasted strange, like the aftertaste of cheap wine.

As she watches Waverly Earp escape a prison she’d built for herself, smiling as she holds her stupid piece of paper and looking entirely too goddamn pretty in her graduation gown, she tastes pride, honest and pure and full of joy, and it is sweet tannins and smooth silk on her tongue. 

From the blade in between her ribs, she feels the flourish of flowers.

***

And because she is who she is, Waverly Earp delivers a proper speech, and she hides away her anguish and her frustration as she goes on about friendship and teachers and knowledge, and Nicole knows some of it is not entirely true, really, but she doesn't care about the truth when the lie is shaped like Waverly’s mouth. 

And right before Waverly leaves her place of honour, she looks up from the piece of paper in her hands. 

“I just wanted to thank my sister,” she says, “I’m not sure I’d be even here if I didn’t have her by my side”.

Nicole glances to her side, and she pretends she doesn’t see the glimmering of melting ice caps on Wynonna’s eyes, and she pretends she doesn’t hear the soft little sniffle she lets out.

“And to… to thank my cowboy, too,” she says, and Nicole has no heart and no bones and she is just nothingness flying away in space. “Thank you for the seeds”.

Sometimes, love is complete devotion, and sometimes it is an overture of piano and violins. 

***

“You two figured it out yet?” Dolls asks, rolling up his sleeves as they stand outside the school building, waiting for Wynonna and Waverly. 

Nicole does not miss the way Nedley looks at him, and there’s wine on her tongue again. 

“Figured what out?” she asks.

Nedley snorts beside her.

“You and Waverly,” Dolls says simply.

“Ain’t no figurin’ no more nothin’,” Nicole fusses, crossing her arms over her chest and ignoring the twitching of Nedley’s mustache.

Xavier Dolls hums and looks at Nedley with a glint in his eye which speaks of other conversations. Nicole wonders just how many times her name comes up around the Station.

“Being too sure is never a good thing,” Dolls tells her.

“I ain’t sure of nothin’,” Nicole grumbles, “we friends ‘s all”.

Dolls nods with a small smile.

“If you say so,” he grins, “cowboy”.

***

“Ya welcome,” Nicole says, eyes focused on the plate of pasta in front of her. 

Waverly looks back at her, leaving Wynonna talking to herself. 

“What?” she asks, sweet little voice a note too high over the white noise of the restaurant.

“Ya welcome,” Nicole repeats, “for ‘em seeds”.

Waverly smiles.

Nicole returns to her food, trying not to smile at the stupid look on Dolls’ face as he watches Wynonna shovel pasta in her mouth with as little class as humanly possible. 

“Thanks for not wearing jeans,” Waverly says with a light chuckle, “didn’t know I was this big of a deal”.

Nicole huffs, daring to look at pretty lips and impossible eyes. 

Waverly looks back at her with curiosity and something else, something a little evil and a little too kind. 

“I’m real proud,” Nicole tells her.

She doesn’t mean she’s proud she’s graduated.

***

When Wynonna says she’s going over to Dolls’ place so they can go out and buy party supplies the next day, telling rather than asking Nicole to take Waverly home, it feels like a trap.

***

“Timmy misses ya,” Nicole hums, filled with sorrow for interrupting Waverly singing along to Patsy Cline. 

Waverly smiles.

“You taking good care of him?” she asks, though she knows the answer.

“‘course,” Nicole nods seriously, “he’s too damn big”.

Waverly does not pick at her nails.

She extends her hand and she squeezes Nicole’s, and for a second there are two people holding onto the gear shift and Nicole does not know which speed she’s supposed to reach.

And then she’s alone again.

“I’ll have more time to visit him, now,” Waverly assures her.

Nicole smiles at the promise.

“I’ll let him know”.

Waverly giggles as if they’re sharing a secret. 

Maybe they are, Nicole supposes.

“And stop complaining about him being too big!” she whines playfully. “That’s what plants  _ do”. _

Indeed. That’s what they do.

“Ya excited ‘bout ya party tomorrow?” Nicole asks her, and the air is soft and almost nothing and breathing is so very easy.

Waverly shrugs.

“I mean, I guess,” she sighs, “I just… you guys really didn’t have to. I’d be happy with you and pizza”. 

Nicole would be happy with Waverly and the vacuum of space.

“Ya deserve it,” Nicole reminds her, “it ain’t nothin’”.

Waverly only shrugs.

“Champ and his friends are going,” Waverly says, and it sounds like a warning.

Nicole ignores the tugging on her bones.

She hums.

“I can… uninvite them, if you want”.

Nicole chuckles.

“Ain’t no need for that. I’m sure I’ll survive”.

Waverly picks on her nails, then, and maybe the air is easy for her, too.

“Do you still… think about your parents?” she asks quietly.

An overture.

Nicole takes a deep breath.

“‘course,” she shrugs. “I worry about them. For my mom, mostly”.

Waverly nods, and she sways with the movement and with the wind and with the music.

“I’m glad you left them”.

Nicole blinks.

She didn’t like to think about leaving.

It felt heavy and constricting against her chest, the guilt of abandoning what’s supposed to be your blood.

She huffs.

“Ya know what’s funny?” she asks Waverly.

The girl only looks at her, bright eyes moss and lichen.

“I still feel guilty, a lil’,” she admits, “ain’t even know if they’re still alive”.

And because Waverly Earp  _ knows  _ her without intention and without purpose, she hums something sweet and something addictive.

“Taking care of yourself isn’t selfish, you know”.

Nicole supposes the girl knows a few things about selfishness.

She shrugs.

“You could try to find them,” Waverly offers, “see if they’ve changed. See if they’re worth it”.

Nicole swallows pebbles and old coins.

The thought of seeing her father’s face again made the back of her neck so cold and so hot it felt like it was no longer there, as if there were only exposed nerves and dripping blood holding her against herself.

“I’d go with you, if you wanted,” Waverly adds with so much innocence and so much foreign selflessness Nicole can’t help but think of bunnies and top hats.

“Ya’d do that?”

Waverly only smiles.

***

There are no scales and there is no fairness when it comes to small birds and cracked ribs, but Nicole supposes loving someone willing to give means loving not only them but also yourself.

***

Nicole quietly sips on a beer, absentmindedly rolling tobacco with too much care.

(whenever she got a little too drunk, she absolutely unlearned how to roll cigarettes, which resulted in lots of wasted tobacco and got Doc to laugh at her crooked excuses for cigarettes.

She felt like she’d been embarrassing herself a little too much lately, so she supposed it’d be better to have a few already on-hand).

“Yo Knuckles!” Wynonna yells. “A little help!”

Nicole looks up, watching as Wynonna tries to pick up a box of vodka and bourbon bottles with no success.

“Whatcha go to the gym for?” Nicole snickers, walking over to her.

The box is not heavy, and Wynonna groans when Nicole picks it up with ease.

“Shut it,” she complains.

Nicole carries it inside the kitchen, smiling at the sight of Rosita and Waverly chopping tomatoes and red onions.

“I have a friend in social sciences,” Rosita is saying, “I can ask him about the professors, he must know some of yours”.

Waverly smiles in agreement.

Nicole can’t help but think of Shae and of the wrongness of wishing ill to someone else for reasons beyond their control.

“Ya girls gonna have to excuse me,” she says, biceps straining as she waits for Rosita to step back so she can place the box over the kitchen counter. “Thank ya kindly”.

Rosita snorts.

“Why do you have to  _ talk  _ like that?” she grins. 

Nicole shrugs.

“It’s called an accent, Rosie,” she retorts.

The box thuds heavily against the counter, and there are two pairs of pretty eyes focused on her arms.

She thinks she’s learning what it is like, being desired.

“What ya two makin’?” she asks.

Waverly beams.

“Rosita’s teaching me her mother’s guacamole recipe!”

Oh, to be Waverly Earp in her immense talent for finding joy in nooks and crannies.

“It’s just normal guacamole,” Rosita replies with a grin.

“It’s a  _ family  _ recipe,” Waverly corrects.

Nicole supposes there is joy to be found in creating your own family.

“Ya need any help?” she asks, wiping her palms on her shirt.

Waverly shakes her head.

“I think Wynonna needs you more than we do,” she says.

Rosita snorts.

“You’ve no idea how true that is,” she chuckles.

Waverly laughs with her.

***

“Is it like, a bissexual thing? Having a crush on you?” Wynonna groans, pushing the couch away from the middle of the living room. 

Ward Earp is on a “business trip”, of course, which could mean he’s going to meetings and making money or could mean he’s drunk on a ditch somewhere.

Nicole doesn’t think the Earp girls care anymore.

“Waverly’s… bi?” she asks tentatively, pulling as Wynonna pretends to push without really doing much of anything.

Wynonna lets out a strange sound.

“Dunno,” she mumbles, “guess so”.

Nicole wonders if she should ask. 

She knows it hurts to have a sign hanging from your neck but not being able to discern what it says.

***

“I stole some wine,” Doc greets, putting down a large box filled with different bottles. Some of them are no longer sealed.

“From who?” Dolls asks, helping Waverly Earp cut avocados. 

Doc doesn’t reply. 

Ignorance is bliss, Nicole supposes. 

“It ain’t how ya do it,” she tells Dolls as he tries to pick out the avocado seed with his bare hands. “Ya destroying it!”

He rolls his eyes.

“We’re going to turn them into mush, Haught,” he retorts.

She takes the avocado away from him, picking up a kitchen knife. 

“Ya ain’t have no respect for ya damn food,” she complains. 

He just shrugs, sitting down on the kitchen table.

Waverly watches, entranced, as Nicole stabs the seed and pulls it off with a clean swipe.

“I can’t believe we’re just giving away all of this precious booze,” Wynonna laments, legs dangling from the counter. 

“By your suggestion,” Doc reminds her, slouching on his chair. 

Rosita snorts.

“You guys didn’t have-” Waverly starts.

It’s funny, really, the simultaneous eye rolls and the groaned  _ shut its  _ and  _ it’s nothings  _ and  _ god, stop whining _ s.

(the last one is quite easy to identify).

Nicole doesn’t reply.

It feels like she should allow Waverly to understand she is loved by many and in many different ways.

***

“How’s gardening?” Rosita asks, sitting down on the couch beside Nicole.

The sound of the shower running echoes down from upstairs, and Nicole sips on her beer as she watches Doc trying to explain to Dolls and Waverly some supposed variant of poker which he probably made up two days ago.

Rosita sips on her bourbon and basil smash, and Nicole smiles. She’d brought the herbs for her.

“Good,” she shrugs, “but I ain’t sure what to do when winter comes back”.

Rosita nods.

“No work?”

Nicole hums.

“Pretty much,” she sighs. “Ain’t no gardenin’ on snow”.

Rosita places her hand on Nicole’s thigh, and the warmth is a little foreign and a little uncomfortable.

***

Waverly looks up from her cards and a dark forest finds an alien hand, and she furrows her brows and purses her lips.

Nicole watches intently as Waverly’s eyes burn and melt Rosita’s hand until it is a mess of gore sitting atop her thigh.

She is capable of selfishness, she knows.

***

“Ya mom bein’ good to ya?” Nicole asks Nicolette. 

Nicolette does not answer.

“‘course she is,” Nicole hums, and the sound of the water running over Waverly Earp’s skin from the next room tickles at her navel and drags her into coral reefs.

When the sound stops, Nicole braces herself for Judgement Day and she holds her breath until bare feet tap against old carpet and Waverly emerges in tight jeans and a tighter shirt and long, wavy hair wet and dripping.

It’s funny, how easy it is for Waverly Earp to be Judas after being a god.

It is quiet, and Nicole simply allows the crisp late afternoon breeze to wash over green and to wash over her as Waverly walks around her room, picking up make up Nicole does not understand and rifling through an entirely unnecessary collection of shoes.

“Ya look nice,” she hums, and the words travel through shadow and light and they sway with the breeze.

Waverly looks over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she smiles a smile filled with glucose and sugar and gelatin.

Their silence is so very easy, and it is a maze that leads not to the minotaur but to wings made of wax.

“Rosita really likes you,” Waverly comments as if it’s nothing other than an observation.

Nicole breathes out. 

“I know,” she replies.

Waverly stares at her, eyes speaking in tongues Nicole will never be able to translate.

“She’d be easy,” Waverly tells her.

An overture.

Nicole nods.

“I know” she smiles, “so are Champ ‘n Perry ‘n anyone ya want”.

Waverly smiles back at her. In tongues Nicole does not know how to read but knows how to  _ feel,  _ Waverly’s eyes speak of decisions.

“That doesn’t mean much, does it?” Waverly says.

Nicole tastes the strongest tannins and the smoothest silk and the most delicious wine.

“It don’t mean nothin’ at all”.

***

After she’s clean and wearing her nice flannel shirt, she descends the stairs and she walks outside, placing a cigarette between her lips.

The wind does not allow her to light it, and then the ocean is cold and Waverly comes outside. She silently moves towards Nicole, raising her hands to shield her lighter from the wind, and together, they set fire and they burn.

“Thanks,” Nicole hums.

Waverly does not reply, leaning forward with her elbows on wooden rails.

“Can I ask ya somethin’?” Nicole tries, “ya ain’t have to answer”.

Waverly nods.

“Ya… like ‘em boys ‘n ‘em girls?” she asks, scared she’s being a parasite burrowing herself in Waverly’s roots.

Waverly chuckles.

“I guess I do”.

***

There are orchids which smell just like chocolate.

She thought they were a little too sweet, and the smell invaded her nostrils with too much aggression, but Waverly’d thought that was the most incredible thing in the world.

Waverly Earp understanding herself is a litte too sweet and a little too invasive and a little too much like all that she always was.

Nicole’s hope is agressive and it is chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine being this Dumb. i absolutely can relate.


	27. Chapter 27

20.

There’s something too fun about being a little older and a little wiser than a bunch of teenagers and just sitting back and allowing yourself to watch them being stupid and acting like they’re drunker than what they are.

It is even more fun when Wynonna creates a game in which each of them pick a teenager as their own, and maintain a system of points to see who gets the most by the end of the night.

Whenever they embarrass themselves, which is a lot, they lose a point. Whenever they get themselves a new drink, they gain a point. Kissing, laughing and generally being a normal person gets them more points. Throwing up, disappearing in the bathroom for too long, spilling their drinks or being a terrible person loses them points.

Nicole’d chosen a girl she’d met a few times, working on her parents’ garden, and was at a solid three positive points. Not bad, considering Wynonna had settled for Champ just so she could laugh at him, and was currently at seven negative points. Dolls refused to play, though Nicole knew he was cheering for Wynonna’s impossible win, and Doc had chosen a random boy just because he was also wearing a hat, and had no points after the boy had three shots but spilt two of them and then tried to very annoyingly hit on a girl.

Rosita was always the smart one, so she chose Waverly, and was at solid eight positive points.

***

“He didn’t  _ spill  _ it,” Doc argues, “there’s still some inside the glass!”

Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“There’s a puddle right there,” she points, “stop cheating”.

“Maybe you just lose half a point,” Dolls reasons with a shrug, downing his wine with a grimace. 

Dolls grumbles something about foolishness and love, but settles for his half negative score.

“Waverly ain’t a fair choice,” Nicole tells Rosita, feet propped up on the coffee table as she follows her player with attentive eyes, a little worried about the color of the girls face.

She’s lookin’ real green.

“No one said anything about fairness,” Rosita retorts, “all is fair in love and war”.

Nicole is not sure why that applies to their game, but she’s five beers in, so she doesn’t care much about it.

***

It’s lovely, watching Waverly beam with joy and with pride at her own celebration. 

She seamlessly travels from friend group to other friend group with the ease and the comfort Nicole could never muster, laughing and drinking and just being an eighteen year old, and Nicole feels a little relieved that the world she was born in did not transform her into bitter, cold coffee.

***

Nicole stands up, swaying slightly as she tries to ground herself.

“I’m gettin’ us somethin’ to eat,” she explains, “ain’t good to drink on empty stomachs”.

Wynonna cackles.

“Is this drunk trying to parent us?” she asks no one in particular.

Nicole tries to roll her eyes, but it gets her a little dizzy.

“I’m going with you,” Rosita says, “make sure you don’t get lost on the way”.

Nicole is not sure she’d be much help, really, because she tries to stand up and falls right back on the couch, breathing in before standing up a second time. Nicole holds onto her elbow to keep her upright.

“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” Wynonna snickers, and Nicole chooses to ignore it.

They navigate the living room with care, trying to avoid the sweaty teenagers and the flying booze and the scattered shoes and jackets laying on the floor. 

Rosita snickers, pointing at the far wall, and Nicole follows her index finger until her eyes settle on Stephanie making out with Champ.

She snorts.

“Does that get Wynonna a point?” she asks.

Rosita laughs.

“I think making out with that bitch counts as a negative”.

Nicole can’t help but agree.

***

When they finally arrive in the kitchen after what should’ve taken less than a minute but took almost five, Nicole breathes out, closing the door behind her and thanking jesus there’s no one else inside.

“Urgh,” she groans.

Rosita laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Agreed”.

Nicole looks around the empty kitchen.

“Where’s the guacamole?” she whispers.

The pounding of terrible pop music drowns out her voice.

“What?” Rosita asks, narrowing her eyes.

“Where’s the damn guacamole?” she repeats, louder this time.

Rosita gasps, staring at the empty kitchen table. There was a gigantic bowl of guacamole there just an hour ago.

“It vanished,” she whispers earnestly.

They both stand by the table, staring down at the empty bottles and crumpled red solo cups.

The kitchen door opens, allowing the terrible music to filter through, and then it’s all muffled sound again.

Nicole’s spine vibrates.

“What are you two… doing?” Waverly Earp asks with a sweet little giggle.

Nicole feels her knees melt under her weight.

“The god damned guacamole!” she accuses.

Rosita looks back at Waverly.

“Someone stole it,” she adds.

Waverly laughs.

“Everyone ate it,” she tells them, and her voice is not quite slurred yet, “so I washed the bowl”.

Nicole gasps.

“There ain’t no more?” she asks somberly.

Waverly giggles.

“Afraid not,” she says, apologetic.

Rosita settles her hand on Nicole’s shoulder, shaking her head.

“There’s no more guacamole,” she whispers.

Nicole looks down in defeat.

“I ain’t even taste it,” she tells no one in particular.

Waverly giggles at them.

“How are you two so drunk already?” she asks.

Nicole ain’t too sure.

“I ain’t too sure,” she tells her.

“Waverly!” Rosita yells over Nicole's voice.

Waverly widens her eyes with a small smile.

“Rosita!” she replies.

Nicole snorts.

“You’re my avatar, and we’re winning”.

Waverly looks at her with wide eyes and a slightly opened mouth and Nicole tries not to focus on the pinkness of her tongue.

It’s awful hard.

“I’m your what?” she asks.

“It’s a _game_ ,” Rosita slurs, “and I picked _you_ , and we’re _winning_!”

Nicole snickers.

“She’s cheatin’, though,” she tells Waverly seriously, “ya ain’t supposed to pick someone smart”.

“I picked a teenager,” Rosita argues, “it’s the only rule”.

Waverly watches them with the same expression one might adopt when watching a toddler babble about some senseless thing they just came up with.

“Well, it’s been fun,” Rosita sighs, “but I have to pee”.

“Ya want me to go with ya?” Nicole asks.

Rosita shakes her head with determination.

“I’m perfectly capable of peeing by myself, miss Haught,” she tells her with a pointed look, “and  _ you  _ shouldn’t be peeing with anyone when you’re committed to someone else”.

And with that delightful little comment, Rosita staggers out of the kitchen and leaves Nicole to die by herself.

She stares at her own shoes, and with her peripheral vision, she can sense Waverly moving about the kitchen. There’s the sound of glass clinking together, and then she’s offering Nicole a glass of water.

“Drink up,” she hums.

Nicole obeys, of course.

“I like her,” Waverly says.

Nicole finishes her glass of water, and she watches with hazy eyes as Waverly takes it back and places it inside the sink.

“Rosita?” Nicole asks, “I love her loads”.

Waverly riffles through the suspicious wine Doc had brought, deciding on a white wine Nicole hates. 

It’s too damn sweet.

Nicole watches with bizarre contentment as Waverly pours herself a glass, staring at the almost empty bottle for a moment before shrugging and downing it.

Such a sweet little thing, you see.

“And she has a crush on you,” Waverly repeats, as if trying to make sure Nicole is aware of it.

Nicole snorts.

“Guess she does”.

Waverly nods to herself, resting her hip against the counter. 

(Nicole thinks of Caelus and barbecues and the soft shuddering of Waverly’s thighs when they’d kissed so many moons ago).

“Committed?” she asks with faux casualness, and Nicole would’ve laughed if she was a little less drunk.

Nicole walks over to the fridge, opening the freezer and pulling out another beer.

And then she has an idea.

“Ya gettin’ ya answer if ya do a shot with me,” she says, because she has no sense of self preservation and maybe because she is drunk.

Waverly giggles.

“You’re already drunk, Nicole,” she rolls her eyes.

“Ain’t no such thing as a drunk cowboy,” Nicole tuts, “‘n ya ain’t”.

Waverly grumbles something about idiots, but she pours them two shots of bourbon. Nicole is not drunk enough to not notice that her cup is significantly less full, but she doesn’t care.

When she picks it up, Waverly opens her pretty little mouth.

“To commitments,” she says.

Nicole hums and then she throws the liquid fire back, grimacing as it travels down her throat.

She picks up her beer, using alcohol to wash down alcohol.

As you do.

“My answer,” Waverly says, nudging Nicole on the ribs.

Nicole groans.

“Ya know what my damn commitment is,” she says, because she knows Waverly without intention and without purpose.

Waverly downs her wine in one large gulp.

“I don’t think I trust what I know,” she says.

Nicole looks up at hazy eyes filled with Dieffenbachias. 

“Why not?” she asks.

Waverly shrugs.

“Because I’m not… worth it”.

Nicole laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Love ain’t about worth, Miss Waverly,” she says, because who cares anymore.

She has no more skin and no more bones and no more muscles. It is only when she is nothing more than nothingness that she will be able to become herself again.

“Love is about god damned love”.

And she downs her beer, moving to get herself another one before she leaves Waverly Earp, a little drunk and a little shocked, to understand she is not worth the pain Nicole has felt, but she is worth milk and honey.

***

Rosita nudges Nicole’s thigh.

“Did you two kiss?” she asks.

Nicole spits her beer back inside the bottle.

“What?” she asks, a little too loud.

“Gross, dude,” Wynonna comments.

“Did you?” Rosita presses.

Nicole shakes her head blindly.

“Ugh, you’re so  _ slow,” _ Rosita groans.

It’s strange, really.

Nicole isn’t sure she’s used to people being as kind as she is.

She breathes in.

“Ya ain’t mind?” she asks her, because they’re drunk and because she does not ever want to hurt Rosita’s pretty heart.

Rosita chuckles.

“You’re not that big of a deal, Haught,” she winks.

Nicole rests her hand on her knee, because they both need a little warmth.

“I want you to be happy, you big idiot,” she shrugs with a small smile.

Nicole smiles.

“I want ya to be happy, too,” she tells her.

***

There’s something to be said about helping someone light a fire with your own bones. 

***

When Perry Crofte approaches Waverly Earp with what Nicole assumes should be a charming grin, she feels bile take over her throat.

She watches with too much intention as he goes on and on and Waverly nods and laughs and replies.

And then Waverly says something to him, and he looks down at his feet before nodding and walking away.

***

The first time Nicole planted pumpkin seeds, they took too long to grow and they died before ever even flowering.

The second time Nicole planted pumpkin seeds, she and Nedley carved five large pumpkins on Halloween.

She hadn’t done anything wrong, the first time, not really.

She supposes they just weren’t ready yet.

***

Nicole is very, very glad she had the foresight to roll herself cigarettes while sober, because the staggering involved in walking out of the house and sitting herself down on the grass really says a lot about her capacity to deal with tiny papers.

She manages it, of course, and she stares up at the sky.

She thinks it looks a little brighter than usual.

Nicole reaches inside her front pocket, pulling out her lighter, and she removes a crumpled cigarette from it’s place behind her ear.

(She thought it looked cool, though Wynonna had said she looked like a bigger moron than usual).

She lights it up, and she finds herself staring with amazement at the ember light, all soft orange and ash.

“Do you hate my party?” asks Waverly Earp with playful heartache.

Nicole grins, looking up at the giant hovering over her, crowned by the universe with dead stars and vast nothingness. Her heart ruffles it’s feathers from it’s place on Waverly Earp’s shoulder. 

“I like it, Miss Waverly,” she assures her, blowing out smoke, “just felt a lil’ sick with all that damn pop music”.

Waverly laughs, sitting down by Nicole’s side.

“I’m afraid Johnny Cash isn’t really party music,” she says with a pretty smile.

Nicole gasps.

“Ya wash ya damn mouth before ya talk ‘bout Johnny,” she warns.

Waverly giggles, and she rests her wine glass between her thighs.

Nicole thinks it is appropriate, that she’s the only one at the party with fragile glass in her hands.

“I saved you some guacamole,” Waverly whispers.

Nicole widens her eyes.

“It’s in the back of the fridge. I knew you’d want to try it”.

Nicole could kiss her right then.

Which doesn’t really mean much, actually.

“Thank ya, ma’am,” she nods solemnly.

Waverly giggles.

“Perry chattin’ ya up?” Nicole asks quietly as she watches the smoke flow over the moonlight. It cannot keep the brightness from seeping through.

Waverly snorts.

“Trying to,” she replies.

Nicole’s ribs are not a cage, but a home.

“Too easy?” she asks with a small smile.

Waverly hums beside her, reaching for her cigarette without asking.

“I don’t think I should settle for easy anymore” Waverly breathes out. 

Nicole hums her agreement, worried if she opens her mouth she will tell Waverly Earp the reason her lungs are still inside her own body.

“Ain’t ya the smartest lil’ thing,” she whispers after she’s sure her throat will not betray her.

Waverly chuckles, and her joy leaves her body in the form of Nicole’s cigarette smoke.

“Had a good teacher,” she says.

Would ya look at that, Nicole Haught teachin’ anybody anythin’.

***

Nicole never cared much for parties.

Too many people and too much noise and too many eyes wondering what the hell she was doing there.

This one is different.

There are enough people to make for an extensive list of reasons to laugh, and the noise is just right to make their laughter sweeter and louder, and the eyes are not focused on her, at least not the ones which do not matter.

Could parties be considered overtures?

***

“Why do I have to drink again?” Wynonna slurs.

“‘cause ya lost,” Nicole tells her as she sips on her disgusting mixture of lukewarm beer and bourbon.

The house is not nearly as packed as before, and they’re all sprawled out on the living room floor, remaining bags of cheetos and chips scattered around them. There’s still the muffled chatter of a few people outside, and some random couple is making out against the hallway’s wall, but who cares about god damned teenagers anyways.

“I  _ won,”  _ Wynonna retorts.

“You have fifteen negative points,” Rosita points out. She lifts up ten fingers, then she narrows her eyes, “this isn’t fifteen”.

Dolls snorts.

“It is not,” he says, and he sounds a little less bored than usual, which is the only sign of drunkenness he ever really displays. 

Nicole raises her own hand, five fingers up, and she adds it to Rosita’s ten.

“There ya go,” she says.

Rosita smiles.

“Thank you  _ so  _ much,” she breathes out, and Nicole thinks she looks a little like she might cry.

And then she narrows her eyes.

“What’s that?” she points at the tiny little bruise on Rosita’s throat.

Her face goes so red Nicole thinks she might pass out.

“Nothing!” she yells.

“Oh my  _ god!”  _ Wynonna laughs, “who did that?”

Rosita groans, laying down on the old carpet. 

Doc raises his hands defensively.

“Wasn’t me,” he says with a smirk.

Nicole purses her lips.

“Was it… was it a teenager?” she asks lowly.

Wynonna is laughing so hard Dolls has to hold her by the shoulders to keep her upright.

“It wasn’t anyone!” Rosita replies.

Doc snorts.

“That’s a hickey if I ever did see one,” he says, mustache twitching with the telltale sign of his chuckling. 

“Waverly!” Nicole yells, “Miss Waverly!”

A moment later, Waverly jogs inside, trying not to spill her wine on the carpet.

“What?” she asks with an edge of worry.

Nicole snorts.

“Rosita’s neckin’ ya friends,” she tells her.

Waverly giggles. 

“Rosita’s shagging a teenager,” Wynonna sighs with exaggerated sorrow.

Dolls looks like he might either drop dead or laugh his damn ass off.

“Stop saying that!” Rosita groans, covering her face with a bag of cheetos. “It was just some kissing!”

Wynonna claps her hands with delight.

“She’s pleads guilty, ladies and gentleman of the jury,” she says in what Nicole thinks is her emulation of a lawyer.

“Who was it?” Waverly asks with glimmering curiosity, sitting down beside Nicole on the carpet as if their closeness is not a miracle and a joy and the taste of the fruits of the holy spirit. 

Rosita mumbles something, and it’s muffled by the bright orange package resting over her face.

“Who?” Waverly asks again, smiling so wide and so pure Nicole cannot help but feel like she’s receiving the consecrated host.

Nicole gently removes the bag from Rosita’s face.

“Perry,” she groans.

There’s a moment of silence, then, as if they’re all attending a funeral.

(perhaps Rosita’s dignity’s funeral).

And then the room is filled with desperate, maniacal laughter.

Nicole briefly wonders if all bissexual people have the same taste.

***

Nicole sets two glasses of water and two advils on Wynonna’s nightstand, smiling at the sight of the girl as the small spoon, wrapped around Dolls.

She walks slowly, bare feet padding against the carpet as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her. 

She walks back downstairs, filling two other glasses with water and bringing them out to the living room, placing them on the coffee table along with the remaining advil. Doc snores from his place on the floor, and Nicole winces at the pile of blankets he’s using as a makeshift mattress, which does not look nearly thick enough.

She leans down, placing a soft kiss on Rosita’s forehead and pulling her blanket a little tighter around her. She hopes the couch is not too uncomfortable.

Her spine tingles and twists and trembles.

She looks back, and Waverly is resting against the doorframe. 

“That’s sweet,” she says with a mixture of bitter jealousy and sweet admiration.

It is so very  _ her _ .

“Ya need anythin’?” Nicole asks her, “hungry?”

Waverly smiles, shaking her head.

“I’m okay,” she breathes out. “You haven’t had your guacamole, though”.

Nicole widens her eyes, and Waverly chuckles.

“Go get changed,” she offers, “I’ll bring it upstairs”.

***

When Nicole is wearing flannel pajama pants and a Johnny Cash T-shirt, whispering to Waverly’s garden, she hears and she feels Waverly walk inside her bedroom.

“I brought us some Pepsi,” she says, “good to have some glucose”.

Nicole ain’t sure why glucose is important, but she trusts Waverly’s knowledge.

“Thanks,” she says, “ya ain’t have to bring me nothin’”.

Waverly only chuckles.

They settle down on her bed, back against the wall and feet dangling from the side of her bed.

(Nicole’s, anyways. Waverly doesn’t quite make it).

Nicole picks up a tortilla chip, reverently covering it in guacamole before bringing it to her mouth.

There’s something about sharing nurture and aiding life and cooking for the ones we love.

“It’s real good,” she tells Waverly.

Waverly chews before answering.

“You should tell Rosita,” she says, with something which is not jealously but is not selflessness.

Nicole breathes in.

“Ya had fun?” she asks.

Waverly smiles, and Nicole feels it travel through the ghosts of stems and leaves which dance against her bedroom wall. 

“It was the best party I’ve ever had,” she whispers, “thank you”.

Nicole shrugs.

“Wynonna’s idea,” she tells her.

“I know,” she says, “thank you for that, too”.

Nicole wonders if she’s really as good a person as Waverly seems to think she is. But again, Waverly Earp is not a god or a deity or anything other than a human being.

“Nicole?” Waverly asks.

Nicole hums. The shadows of her seeds sway with her breathing.

“Why are you still here?” 

Nicole Haught looks at Waverly Earp and her eyes do not burn with the light. They take it in and they transform it into energy and into power. 

“Whatcha mean?” she asks, though she knows what she means. 

She needs to hear it.

“Why are you still… committed? After all I’ve done?” Waverly asks.

Nicole appreciates the truth, and she’s still a little drunk, and she loves Waverly too much to not let her know she is life itself.

She sighs, praying her wax wings will not melt under the sun sitting by her side.

“‘’cause I’ve been in love with ya since before I knew what love was, Miss Waverly," she smiles, "I can’t…” she sighs, “I can’t let ya go ‘n I ain’t sure I want to, either. I can’t stop givin’, not when it’s you I’m givin’ it all to”.

Waverly’s green meets Nicole’s brown and what is a garden if not the marriage of color?

“I don’t deserve you,” she says with so much sorrow and so much regret and so much love Nicole is not sure if her bones are still her own.

“It ain’t ‘bout deservin’,” she reminds her, “it ain’t ‘bout nothin’ more than me lovin’ ya ‘n ya lovin’ me,” she shrugs.

And she’s scared, she’s too scared, so she settles her eyes on the certainty of life inside Waverly’s room and she watches the plants stare right back at her.

“I do,” Waverly whispers.

And she takes hold of the handle of her knife and she pulls it out from between Nicole’s ribs, and Nicole is scared she will bleed to death.

“I do love you, Nicole,” Waverly repeats, soft little hands pressing down on her wound and keeping her blood from flowing out, “I just don’t know how to love. Not like you do”.

Nicole thinks of the first seed which sprouted on her garden. She thinks of life and love and infinity and there’s elation in the promise of a future.

And she looks back to the certainty of life that is Waverly’s gaze, and she smiles.

“Ya learnin’, already,” she assures her.

And because the earth is one amongst millions of planets which managed to create life after a succession of miracles, and because Nicole Haught found Randy Nedley, and because if god is real his face is handsome and his touch is soft, and because Timothy will not stop growing and spreading and taking over Nicole’s garden, Waverly leans forward and she presses her lips against Nicole’s.

And it is not hungry and it is not desperate and it is not filled with doubt and regret and _pain_.

It is something new, this one, it is biting down on fresh peaches and feeling their juice dripping down your chin and it is the first flower of spring and it is all Nicole had ever wanted for herself. 

This time, Waverly’s lips speak in tongues Nicole needs not to translate, and all they say is  _ I love you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a moment to write you all a love letter.  
> Writing fic was literally a random, spur of the moment idea I had, which I thought would last for a week and I'd never think about it again. I genuinely did not expect people to be this kind, to be this involved and supportive, and I did not think it'd be this fulfilling.   
> So thank you for reading and for feeling.


	28. Chapter 28

20.

Nicole wakes up to the smell of jasmine and ginger.

Her head pounds, and she lets out a low groan before opening her eyes. A sweet little giggle caresses her cheek, and she is welcomed by the sight of two sleepy, dazed green eyes staring at her 

The weight of Waverly’s warm body pressing against her side is a miracle, and she briefly wonders if she’s still asleep.

“Hangover?” asks the tiny little thing, arm draped over Nicole’s stomach.

Nicole doesn’t really feel her head pounding anymore.

“A lil’,” she answers, and she feels her body warm and her spine tingle when Waverly giggles again, softly rubbing her cheek against her shoulder.

“It’s still early,” the girl says, “you should go back to sleep”.

Nicole is nothing if not obedient.

***

When she wakes again, Waverly is still weighing her down to the Earth’s core, and her green vastness is still staring at Nicole’s face.

“Ya ain’t sleepin’,” Nicole tells her, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. 

Her right arm holds Waverly Earp impossibly tighter against her, and she’s not too sure when exactly it ended up around her shoulders.

“I’m not,” Waverly breaths out, pretty eyes hinting at glee and lightness so unfamiliar to her greenery Nicole wonders if this is the same girl who’d broken her heart.

“Ain’t ya tired?” Nicole asks her, and they’re so close their breathing mixes together, poisonous dioxides too glowing and too hospitable to do them any harm.

Waverly shrugs as best as she can inside her cocoon of blankets and of Nicole.

“You’re really pretty,” she says, as if it is as best an answer as any she could give.

Nicole chuckles.

“Ya can’t sleep ‘cause I’m real pretty?” she asks, pressing a soft, feathery kiss to the girls forehead.

Waverly melts further against her skin, and they are but one.

“I don’t want to sleep because you’re really pretty,” she whispers, “and because I don’t want to wake up alone”.

Nicole swallows ash and honey.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” she says, though it does not need to be said.

“I know,” Waverly assures her.

The silence around them is another layer of heavy blankets pressing down on Nicole’s skin.

Waverly huffs out a short laugh.

“What?” Nicole asks, looking down.

“It’s stupid, isn’t it?” she asks pensively, “you never did leave, even when I was almost forcing you to,” she hums, “and now I’m scared you will, because I don’t want you to”.

Nicole smiles, lips pressed against honeycomb, and she breathes in Waverly Earp.

“‘n ya wanted me to, before?” she asks.

Waverly shakes her head.

“No,” she speaks into Nicole’s skin, “but I thought you should. Funny way to be selfish, really”.

Nicole snickers.

“For someone so smart, ya real silly, sometimes,” she comments.

Waverly giggles, and she looks up and presses a soft little kiss to Nicole’s lips, and there’s no reason for it and no intention behind it but the need to feel.

Nicole thinks it’s her new favorite.

***

There’s shuffling outside Waverly’s bedroom door, and Nicole looks away from the dancers perched atop Waverly’s window to narrow her eyes at the faintest of shadows moving under the doorway.

“What if they’re naked?” asks Rosita.

There’s more scuffling, and maybe the sound of a slap.

“That’s my  _ sister!”  _ retorts Wynonna.

“I’m just saying-” Rosita starts.

“Maybe you should just, you know,” Dolls interrupts them with endless patience, “knock”.

Nicole is sure he’s the only one of the whole bunch of them with any functioning brain cells.

And he does knock, a certain sound muffled by wood.

And it is so beautiful, how Waverly simply melts further into Nicole, soft little cheek pressing against her shirt and arm a little tighter against her stomach, before she tells them to come in, already.

Nicole is crowned king of the afterlife when her friends walk inside Waverly Earp’s room, three pairs of eyes instantly focusing on the mess of blankets and tangled skin that they have become, and life is just a clear, ever running river.

“Thank god,” Wynonna huffs upon seeing they’re very much still dressed.

“Stop it,” Waverly mumbles, and her eyes are shut and peaceful and she does not move an inch.

“Finally,” Rosita groans, plopping down on Waverly’s desk chair, feet bare and hair still messy.

Dolls smiles the faintest of smiles, and Nicole smiles right back at him.

“Where’s Doc?” Nicole asks no one in particular. 

Wynonna huffs again.

“Sleeping,” she says, “I’m pretty sure he threw up in the middle of the night, so we let him be”.

Waverly’s body shakes against Nicole’s as they both laugh at his misfortune, and it’s such a perfect morning.

“Who’s down for some greasy brunch?” Rosita asks.

Waverly shifts slightly, finally cracking her eyes open.

“We are,” she answers for Nicole.

_ We. _

Would you god damn look at  _ that _ .

***

Nicole’s head is still pounding, because Waverly Earp is only human, so she wraps herself around a particularly fluffy blanket and sits on the bed with her legs crossed, listening to the sound of holy water falling against holy skin and tries very hard not to feel like she’s about to die.

But maybe she’s already dead, because the blanket smells like jasmine and ginger and there is an  _ us. _

She focuses her tired eyes on Waverly’s desk, roaming over the pile of strange books and scattered notebooks, and she spots a small printed out picture of Orville Peck wearing the hat he shares with her.

Nicole smiles a dumb little smile and her little bird slowly flies his way back to his home.

The door opens, and in comes Waverly Earp, aiding his flight, hair wet and precious, wearing tight jeans and the only other flannel shirt Nicole had brought with her over a tight cropped top.

Nicole is pretty sure she is really dead.

“What ya so pretty for?” she asks Waverly and she asks god almighty with endless frustration.

Waverly blushes, and the way she smiles tells Nicole her answer is  _ for you. _

_ *** _

"You look like the Virgin Mary," Waverly giggles, pointing at the blanket draped over Nicole's head.

Such a funny thing, being seen as something holy.

***

When the server moves to pour Nicole a cup of coffee, she looks up with pleading eyes and all but begs the woman to just leave the whole damn pot with her.

She must look real rough, because the woman only nods and places it on their table.

Waverly rests her soft little hand on Nicole’s thigh as if it’s an habit, and Nicole feels better.

“Remind me to order some take away for Doc,” Rosita tells the table, and Nicole dutifully nods.

“I’m not sure he’s gonna eat anything today,” Wynonna retorts, and it’s unfair how unaffected by their irresponsible drinking she always is.

Even Dolls looks a little shot down, sunglasses glued to his face and perfect posture a little less perfect.

“Stop being so  _ loud _ ,” he groans at Wynonna, who in turn cackles quite loudly.

“Nic Cage,” she says, and Nicole’s brain takes a while to process she’s the Nic Cage in question, “bet you ten bucks I can handle more pancakes than you”.

Nicole stares at her in disbelief.

“Ya want me throw up on ya?” she asks her slowly.

Wynonna, eternally amused by normal people’s capacity for alcohol ingestion, only laughs.

“How are you not dying?” Rosita asks with wide eyes, staring up at the ceiling and displaying her hickey to the world.

Nicole snickers.

“Howdy, Perry boy,” she greets the bruise, and Rosita blushes furiously, looking back down at the table.

“Fuck off,” she grunts.

“You guys are so  _ fragile,”  _ Wynonna rolls her eyes, “hangovers are for old people”.

“Hangovers are for not-Earps, apparently,” Dolls says, motioning towards Waverly with his chin.

Nicole has to admit the girl looks entirely nonplussed, too.

She shrugs.

“I didn’t even drink that much,” she reasons.

Nicole sips on her coffee as if it’s the only thing capable of keeping her alive.

When their server arrives with a tray full of delightfully disgusting food, Nicole is on her third cup. 

She stares at the plate of bacon and eggs and pancakes sitting in front of her before she looks over at Waverly, already chewing on her avocado toast.

“Can I have this?” she asks the girl.

Waverly looks over at her with a puzzled look.

“It ain’t vegan,” she explains.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“Neither are you,” she reminds her.

Nicole huffs.

“But ya are,” she reasons.

Waverly raises an eyebrow.

“She’s worried you’re not going to kiss her afterwards,” Rosita aids, embarrasingly loud, and Nicole feels her ears turn red.

Waverly giggles.

She leans over until her lips are inches away from Nicole’s ear, and she tells her there’s not a lot of things capable of keeping her away from Nicole, now.

Nicole is completely sure she has died.

***

“What ya so damn happy ‘bout?” asks Nedley, hands covered in soap as he helps, or rather, watches, Nicole wash her truck.

She shrugs.

“Nothin’,” she answers quietly.

He snorts.

“Don’t ya start lyin’ to me, now,” he warns her, and then he splashes her with the impossibly cold water from the hose.

She yelps.

“Quit it, damn it,” she groans, T-shirt sticking to her torso as it absorbs the water.

He only chuckles.

“Tell me, then,” he warns, hose at the ready.

She rolls her eyes.

“Me ‘n Waverly talked,” she says simply.

He moves the hose away from her.

“Did ya, now?” he asks with a raised eyebrow, “just talked, is it?”

Nicole’s blushing answers the question for her, and he laughs a delighted laugh filled with pride and joy.

“Ain’t that somethin’,” he mumbles to himself.

“Ain’t it,” Nicole echoes.

Nedley smiles at her, and it’s warm and welcoming under the early morning light.

“Ya two datin’, then?” he asks her.

She shakes her head.

“Ain’t… datin’, datin’,” she says, “but it’s different, now. She said she loves me”.

The words taste like fresh and ripe grapefruit exploding against her tongue.

“‘course she does,” Nedley says, and it’s more to himself, really, “I’m real glad, chicken. Ain’t able to stand more of ya mopin’ ‘round”.

He means he loves her and he’s glad he raised someone who is loved by others in a multitude of different ways, and she throws a light punch against his round belly and it means she loves him too much to put into words and she’s so very glad she’s become someone who can be loved by so many in so many different ways.

***

Nicole is sat on her living room couch, still wearing her pajama pants and her stupid Tomatoes shirt when the door bell rings.

She had not seen Waverly after the party, and a lot of it was due to work and to bureaucracy and a lot of it was due to the fear of waking up after a too-good dream.

They hadn’t even texted yet, today, and she thinks very little before she gets up, pausing Monty Don’s French Gardens and taking her coffee mug with her.

She almost drops it when she opens the door and the sunlight filters in, competing with the sight of Waverly Earp smiling a bright smile and wearing her flannel again, wavy hair up in a ponytail and holding a vase with a blue orchid in it.

“Waves,” she kinda greets, kinda gasps.

Waverly smiles a little wider.

“Hey,” she waves her pretty little hand, “good morning”.

Ain't it a damn good mornin'.

“Whatcha doin’ here?” Nicole asks, though she makes way for the pretty little thing standing on her porch to come in.

Waverly shrugs.

“I’m bringing you a gift,” she says simply, gesturing towards the vase in her hands.

Nicole only stares.

“What’s that for?” she asks, taking in the impossible color of the flowers.

Blue had always been her favorite.

“A peace offering,” Waverly tries.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“We ain’t… fightin’,” she says.

Waverly smiles.

“I know,” she shrugs, extending the vase towards Nicole. 

Nicole takes it with trembling hands.

“I’m just… getting used to this… giving thing”.

Nicole smiles.

“It ain’t mean ya gotta give me gifts,” she reminds the girl.

Waverly shrugs again.

“I saw it yesterday and it reminded me of you. Blue’s your favorite”.

There are few things as sweet as being remembered for no reason other than for the sake of the memory.

“And you don’t have any flowers,” Waverly adds.

It’s a little funny, her saying that.

And maybe because Nicole is surer, now, or maybe because she’s just cool like that, she opens her damn mouth.

“That ain’t true,” she smiles, “ya right here”.

Maybe it’s worth it, being silly and cliché if it gets Waverly Earp to smile like that.

***

Life isn ‘t always pain and longing and sandpaper rubbing against the palms of our hands.

Sometimes it’s light and tingling and Waverly Earp’s head resting on Nicole Haught’s thigh as they watch bad reality TV on a Tuesday morning.

***

Nicole tells Waverly she needs to shower, and Waverly giggles before sitting up. 

“Do you want more coffee?” she asks.

Nicole feels warm. 

“Please,” she replies, glowing with the homeliness of it all.

***

When she comes back downstairs, the kitchen smells of fresh coffe, but Waverly is nowhere to be seen.

Nicole knows where she is, naturally, so she walks outside and spots a mug of black coffee resting on the steps of her porch and a small figure hunched over Timothy, soft little hands running through his leaves.

She does not approach her, sitting down on the top step and holding onto her mug with both hands, eternally warm as the ceramic heats her palms and Waverly Earp holding a lentghty conversation with her adopted son who cannot reply warming the little bird who has finally come home. 

***

“Ya been bad mouthin’ me?” she asks when Waverly returns, sitting down on the steps beside her and holding her own cup of desecrated coffee.

Waverly giggles.

“I was telling him about the recent… developments”.

Nicole snorts.

“He know it already,” she tells her.

Of course he does.

Waverly shrugs.

“He needs to know it from my point of view, too”.

Nicole breathes out, and the coffee is just the way she likes it.

“‘n what’s ya point of view?” she tries, nudging Waverly’s bare feet with her own.

There’s comfort in knowing Waverly feels this welcomed under her wings.

“You know what’s funny?” Waverly starts, and Nicole raises her eyebrow.

The pretty little thing looks up at her, cheeks a delicious shade of cherry red and pretty lips quirked up in a playful smile.

“Do you remember our first kiss?”

How could Nicole possibly forget the first time she’d tasted religious fervor?

“Of course,” she replies simply.

Waverly chuckles at herself, shaking her head.

“I knew it, then, you know,” she shrugs, looking down at her coffee, which is more milk than coffee, really.

“Knew what?” Nicole asks.

Waverly looks up again, shrugging with a smile so pure Nicole could cry.

“That we couldn’t come back from it,” she says quietly, “that I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t be me anymore”.

Nicole considers it for a moment, thoughtful.

“Ya think ya ain’t yaself?” she asks, voice frightened, "when ya with me?".

Waverly breathes in, shaking her head with a smile.

“Have you ever used watercolors?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole only nods. She had, once, during the time Nedley desperately tried to find something she’d enjoy besides counting things inside her room all day.

“You know when the paintbrush has still some paint on it, and you dip it in water? How it just… oozes out and changes it’s color?”

Nicole nods.

“It’s still water, I guess,” Waverly shrugs, “it’s just made prettier”.

Ah.

***

For the very first time, they kiss in front of Nicole’s garden.

The leaves dance and cheer and smile at them, and Nicole feels Waverly Earp turn her clear water in an entire god damned rainbow, and the colors do not mix together, but rather tangle themselves around each other, endless veins of life making things so much prettier.

***

When Nicole drives Waverly home, they do not talk, and it’s sacred, driving as Waverly sings along with Orville Peck.

Somehow, she turns his mournful baritone and sorrowful lyrics into bright, hopeful love songs.

Somehow, she takes Nicole’s soul and Nicole’s love and she transforms them into something beyond what Nicole thought they could ever be.

And because balance is a lesson life teaches with it’s tough love, Nicole joins in.

***

When she parks the car outside the Homestead and readies herself to lose a piece of her heart, she’s relieved with the knowledge she will have it back in a little while.

Waverly doesn’t open the door at first, hand resting on the handle.

“I know we’re not… I know we still have a lot to figure out,” she says lowly, quietly, “but just… just know I’m trying, yeah?” she begs.

Nicole can only smile.

“I know,” she says, because she does. “That’s all I want ya to do, Waves”.

Waverly nods to herself.

“We’ll figure it out,” she tells Nicole.

Nicole chuckles.

“‘course we will,” she assures Waverly. 

Waverly opens the door and she climbs out, and right before the door clicks shut, she pulls it open again, climbing back in and pressing the sweetness of her mouth against Nicole’s, and Nicole cannot breathe when her lips invite her in and her tongue tells her tales of love and of horror and of immense magic.

Kissing Waverly Earp had felt like coming face to face with god himself.

Kissing Waverly Earp when there is no guilt and there is the promise of an  _ us  _ feels exactly as it should.

It feels like kissing the prettiest little thing Nicole ever did see.

When they pull away, a little breathless and a little more like themselves, Nicole can’t help but chuckle with sheer joy, and Waverly joins in.

Their foreheads touch, and Nicole melts against the certainty of Waverly’s intentions.

“I love you,” Waverly breathes out, voice tinged with desperation. 

Nicole only laughs, because what else can she do, really.

“‘n I love ya, Miss Waverly,” she replies with all the wonder in the world. 

Waverly pulls back, cheeks still a little red, and she grins.

“I’m really glad I’m not being stupid anymore,” she confides.

Nicole laughs.

“Me too”.

***

“Ugh,” Wynonna grunts, picking up Nicole’s discarded pickles and shoving them in her own mouth. 

They sit outside Pussy Willow’s, the annoying bass reverberating through the walls, and Nicole scoffs.

“They’re gross,” she defends herself.

“You’re gross,” Wynonna retorts.

They are both so very mature, you see.

And Nicole breathes in, heart thumping against her bones, and she feels her palms sweat a little against the wrapper of her burger.

“I been meanin’ to ask ya somethin’,” she says.

Wynonna only grunts in response, picking up Nicole’s fries from her lap and shoving an inhuman amount in her mouth.

“Ya know me ‘n Waverly are… talkin’,” she starts.

Wynonna snorts.

“Talking?” she asks, “is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Nicole rolls her eyes, cheeks burning.

“There ain’t no… no  _ it”. _

Wynonna snorts again, louder.

“What about it?” she asks.

Nicole sighs.

“I just… wanted to talk to ya,” she says, “ain’t the same as last time”.

Wynonna chuckles.

“I know that, tough guy,” she says, and then her expression softens into something less Wynonna Earp, and Nicole is surprised by how much she resembles Waverly. “She’s really happy, you know?” Wynonna offers, “like, annoyingly happy. I ate all of her vegan cheese and she didn’t even say anything”.

The words are a shelter, surrounded by bird feeders and bright pink flowers.

“I love her, ya know?”

Wynonna cackles.

“Me and the entire population of Purgatory,” she supplies.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“What I mean is,” she groans, “I wanna take ‘er out”.

Wynonna looks at her, puzzled expression on her face.

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all week?” she asks with a smirk.

Nicole covers her face with her hands.

“What I  _ mean  _ is,” she says with desperation, “I wanna take ya sister out ‘n ask ‘er to be my girlfriend, all nice ‘n proper”.

Wynonna just stares at her.

“Dude, whatever,” she grumbles, “you've been basically married for years now. It’s not like you need my blessing or something”.

Nicole coughs an uncomfortable little cough.

Wynonna chokes on her stolen fries.

“Oh my god,” she manages, eyes watering, “you  _ are  _ asking for my blessing!”

Nicole wishes she was less dramatic.

“I know she ain’t need no guardian or no nothin’!” she pleads, “but I wanna do it proper!”

Wynonna laughs so loud it all but cancels out the muffled bass inside the club.

“Oh my fucking  _ christ,”  _ she cackles, “you’re a fucking mormon!”

Nicole groans, rubbing her face with her hands.

“Shut it!” she whines.

After an endless two minutes of incessant and absurdly loud laughter, Wynonna finally takes in a deep breath.

“Of course you have my blessing you dumb weirdo,” she says with too much casualness, and Nicole knows her enough to know this  _ matters.  _ “And I know you won’t, but if you break her heart, I’ll shoot you dead and use your skin as a rug”.

Nicole bumps her shoulder against Wynonna’s with affection and admiration.

“Ain’t expectin’ nothin’ less”.

***

The first train Nicole’d taken to Purgatory did not lead to Purgatory, but to a city close by.

She learned on her way there that she’d have to take a bus, and she had no money left.

She’d cried, because she was a child and that’s what they do when faced with problems.

A nice lady had asked her what the matter was, and then she’d bought Nicole her ticket along with a can of pepsi and a sandwich.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, i do not care it's a dumb and sexist tradition. nicole is a gentleman and she's real proper and she absolutely needs a blessing.


	29. Chapter 29

20.

Nicole takes a deep breath, hands shaking just the slightest on the wheel, and the Homestead’s front door opens before she’s even out of the car.

Waverly Earp stands there, in a big sweatshirt with sleeves too long for her body, and she smiles. The knowledge that she needs not to knock or to call is the taste of fresh cucumbers in Nicole’s tongue. She wonders if her presence awakens Waverly Earp’s spine, too.

“Ah, damn it,” Nicole sighs, breathing out before she closes her truck’s door and starts to walk towards the girl.

“Hey!” Waverly greets, and they meet halfway, Waverly two steps up on the porch and just about Nicole’s height.

Nicole’s hands move without her permission, settling on her hips, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind.

“Howdy,” Nicole replies with a grimace.

Waverly frowns.

“What’s wrong?” she asks slowly, “you’re sweating”.

Nicole grunts.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong,” she says.

Waverly raises her eyebrows, and it’s a little dangerous.

“I gotta ask ya somethin’,” Nicole relents, and she’s grateful Waverly’s not very… tall.

She’s a little scary when they’re seeing eye to eye.

“Okay,” she drags, expectant.

Then she deflates against nothing.

“Is there something wrong?” she tries again, less defiant, and Nicole feels soft hands squeeze her throat.

“Ain’t no-,” she sighs, rubbing her face. “Yawannagooutwithme?”

Waverly leans forwards, narrowing her eyes.

“What?” 

Nicole groans.

“Ya wanna-” she breathes out, “out with me. Ya ‘n I”.

Waverly snorts.

“ _ What?” _

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“God damn it, Waverly,” she stares up at moss and fallen leaves, “ya wanna go on a date with me?”

Can’t make it clearer than that.

Waverly is almost too pretty, too offensive in her perfection, when she smiles so wide her eyes almost close, bright teeth glowing like the moon reflecting the sun, pretty cheeks red.

God damn her to hell.

“Of course, silly,” she whispers, voice dripping with glee, and then she boops Nicole’s nose, because that’s just how she is.

Nicole breathes a sigh of relief, and Waverly quirks up her brow.

“Did you think I’d say no?” she asks, hands resting against her hips.

And those hands rest against Nicole’s, of course, sharing a place and a posture and a part of Waverly’s skin.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ain’t know what ya was gonna say,” she grumbles, staring down at her own feet.

Waverly giggles.

“You’re too sweet,” she says.

Nicole grumbles something about not being damn sweet ‘n this is stupid, but Waverly only laughs and rests her hands behind Nicole’s neck with lightness and adoration.

“Of course I want to go out with you, Nicole,” she says again, for good measure.

Nicole shrugs, feeling her shoulders rise against soft skin, and they move together.

“Just checkin’,” she says, “ya coulda changed ya mind ‘n all”.

Waverly leans closer, breathing out what Nicole breathes in.

“Not sure that’s gonna happen, cowboy,” she whispers. Nicole feels relieved with the new certainty that is Waverly Earp.

The only thing she’d been sure about, before, was that she loved her.

Now, amazingly, impossibly, beautifully, she’s sure Waverly Earp is willing to love her back.

***

Nicole thought the hardest part would be to gather up the courage to ask Waverly out.

Now that that’s done, though, she realizes it’s way harder to figure out what the hell someone so damn pretty ‘n so damn smart would like to do.

***

Waverly notices her distress, of course.

She sits on the grass, legs stretched in front of her, unworried that her sweatshirt might get grass stains, and she watches Nicole work.

(Nicole had told her she had to go, and Waverly had said she wanted to come with.

Nicole has insisted it was boring, watching her dig ’round, all sweaty, but there was a glint on Waverly’s eyes when she replied that it most certainly would not be boring).

“What you thinking about?” Waverly asks.

Nicole focuses on the five inch deep hole she’s supposed to dig.

“‘bout ‘em holes,” she replies, thoughtless.

A moment later, she realizes just how that sounded, and Waverly’s already laughing.

She was always a little slow, after all.

“Is that so?” she teases.

Nicole shoves her hat further down her head, attempting to cover her ears.

“Quit it,” she retorts, and she’s sure the hole is already perfect, but she keeps digging.

Waverly breathes out.

“You’re worried about something,” she remarks.

Nicole grunts. She does not want to stain the freshness of an  _ us  _ with lies, silly as they are.

“Ain’t sure what we gonna do,” she grumbles.

“What do you mean?” Waverly presses.

“For the date”.

Waverly giggles.

“Whatever you come up with will be perfect,” Waverly tells her with a sweet little smile as Nicole covers the seedling with soil. “Don’t worry”.

Nicole stares back at her, and it’s interesting how she settled on the spot right between darkness and shadow, with her pretty little legs covered by the shadow cast by the willow tree on Mr. Huang’s backyard and her pretty little face glowing with the warm morning sun.

The most beautiful contradiction.

***

She sits on her bed, legs crossed, and a notebook rests on her lap.

She’s written “Date N º 1” on the very top of the page, followed by a still blank cronogram.

At least she can be organized about her panic and despair.

“Whatcha think, Ariadne?” Nicole asks the blue orchids sat on her desk.

She’d never had plants inside her room. It’s nice, having something pretty in such a personal space. 

She’d never realized just how keen to separate beauty from herself she’d always been.

“Ain’t dinner too borin’ though?” She asks the flower, biting her pen. 

Ariadne does not reply, but her stillness tells Nicole she agrees.

***

When she’s nearly asleep, she thinks of something, springing up on her bed and scuffling around until she finds her notebook, and she writes the entire cronogram in less than three minutes.

***

“Miss Waverly?”

Waverly giggles on the other end, warm and lovely. Nicole rubs sleep from her eyes.

“Ya favorite food’s breakfast food, ain’t it?” she asks.

“It’s six in the morning,” Waverly tells her.

Nicole blushes, and she’s glad Waverly cannot see her.

“Ya was sleepin’?” she asks, though she knows the answer, “sorry”.

She swears she can hear Waverly’s lips curl up into a smile and she can feel it’s warmth against her cheek.

“It’s okay,” she says, and she means it. “And yeah, it is my favorite”.

Nicole nods to herself.

“I made our schedule,” she says.

“Our schedule?” Waverly asks, confusion evident on her voice.

“For our date,” Nicole explains.

And maybe because Waverly does not care or maybe because she knows Nicole needs certainty when she is unsure or maybe because she loves Nicole, need to control time and space and herself included, she does not laugh and she does not ask.

“You did?” she says simply, an assurance rather than a question. “Did you happen to choose a date?” 

Nicole hums.

“Friday alright?”

“Of course,” Waverly says, voice bright and lovely.

“But we can’t see each other until then!” Nicole tells her, “it has to be proper”.

Waverly giggles.

“Such a gentleman”.

***

Nicole remembers Friday is still three days away, and she’s not keen on waiting that long, so she calls Waverly again the very next day.

“Yeah?” Waverly greets, voice sleepy and dazed.

Nicole loves her so much, you see.

“Ain’t Friday a lil’ too far away?” she asks Waverly.

The girl giggles.

“Seventy-two hours are a lot of hours,” she hums her agreement.

Nicole nods to herself.

“Tomorrow?” Waverly asks, hopeful.

Nicole doesn’t give a damn she has to work.

“Tomorrow”.

***

Nicole tells Waverly to be ready at nine in the morning sharp, though she shouldn’t wear uncomfortable clothes.

She arrives ten minutes earlier, and Waverly Earp is already sat on the front porch.

Waverly rushes towards her, but Nicole extends out her arms.

“Ain’t no kissin’!” she warns.

Waverly pouts.

“Why not?”

Nicole huffs.

“‘cause it’s our first date! There ain’t gonna be no kissin’ until the end!”

Waverly pouts even more, and Nicole hates how easy it is for her to get Nicole on her damn knees.

“We ain’t done nothin’ proper the first time,” she pleads, “it’s gotta be real proper, now!”

Waverly smiles a shy smile then, merciful.

“You’re too sweet,” she says, and Nicole sighs in relief.

God help her.

***

Thirty seconds later, Waverly starts to say something about not even a tiny little kiss?, but Nicole doesn’t let her finish before her lips are on her.

Waverly Earp always did have a knack for making her break rules.

“Ya have to go up to ya room ‘n wait ‘till I call ya down,” Nicole tells her.

Waverly quirks up an eyebrow.

“Aren’t we going somewhere?” she asks slowly.

“Stop ya questions! It’s a surprise,” Nicole huffs, “now go on,” she urges, pating Waverly on the small of her back.

The girl made of all the leaves from the garden of Eden giggles before returning inside.

Nicole counts to twenty before she opens her car door again, picking up the endless cardboard boxes and carrying them out and around the house until she’s just under Waverly’s window. 

She puts them down, careful, and then she returns, picking up the blanket and the thermos.

Nicole gets to work, placing the large blanket down and opening the cardboard boxes, organizing vegan donuts and pancakes and quite honestly anything she could find on the bakery one hour away from Purgatory with care, though she was never very artistic, and she jogs back to her car one more time, picking up the hidden bouquet of flowers she’d planted on the back of her yard so many months ago, before her heart had been crushed and put back together.

Nicole scatters the numerous packages of seeds she’d brought Waverly, and she takes a deep breath before bending down and picking up a small pebble.

And since she’s real nice ‘n real proper, she shoots it up and it hits Waverly’s window, a nice little noise ringing like a siren on Nicole’s ears.

A second later, a pretty head pokes out with a smile, though it does not last for long.

Waverly Earp stares down at the breakfast Nicole’d brought her, the red blanket covered with vegan food and seed packages, and she stares at Nicole Haught, standing there in jeans and a nice shirt and her very nice hat, bouquet of flowers in hand, and then she disappears from sight.

Nicole breathes in and she breathes out and she breathes in again, praying Waverly does not hate it, and she’s counted all the way to seventy six when a small little body collides with her own, and Nicole was too distracted and too nervous, so she falls back, body slamming against soft grass with a dull thud, and Waverly holds onto her like she’s the meaning to life itself.

“We plantin’ ya garden today,” Nicole whispers against honeycomb hair, and she lets go of the flowers and holds Waverly Earp tightly against herself.

Waverly only nods, skin rubbing against the crook of Nicole’s neck, and Nicole is pretty sure this is the best first date in the world.

***

For a long moment, they just lay on grass as the sun turns them into a puddle, and they mix together until Nicole is sure she will not be able to separate herself again.

***

“I can’t believe you did this all for me,” Waverly whispers, on her knees as she takes in the wildly unnecessary amounts of food and the tiny packages with a variety of vegetables.

“It ain’t nothin’,” Nicole says, and she means it, too, because what is driving for an hour just to get some breakfast for the girl you love if the girl you love was made out of clay by Aruru.

Waverly looks back at her, eyes a little too shiny, and she smiles.

“I never… I’ve never gone on a date before,” she confides.

Nicole is a little surprised.

“Really?” she asks, stretching her legs over the blanket and reaching for the coffee thermos.

“Really,” Waverly nods. “It’s never… I never wanted to, really”.

Nicole smiles to herself.

“What changed?” she asks, because she’s got some pride.

Waverly snorts, rolling her eyes.

“You”.

It’s a mighty fine answer.

***

She’d always wanted to go on a picnic, she tells Nicole.

Never did, though. She’d asked Wynonna to go, once, and she’d said she’d rather die than have ants crawling up her ass.

***

“This is too much, you know,” Waverly says, head resting on Nicole’s lap as she munches on what’s probably her hundredth donut.

She really liked them.

Nicole scoffs.

“It’s our first date,” she reasons, “gotta be real nice”.

Waverly smiles up at her, so much adoration in her eyes Nicole has trouble to breathe.

“What did you do with Shae?” she asks, “on your first date”.

Nicole sips on her coffee, squinting her eyes.

“Ain’t sure,” she shrugs, “we didn’t go on dates much”.

Waverly hums.

“There’s gotta be at least one you remember,” she presses.

Nicole looks down at soft skin, and she smiles.

“We went out for dinner once,” she tries, “sushi”.

Waverly raises her eyebrow.

“Real gross,” Nicole grimaces.

It’d been a tragedy, really. She did not appreciate how slimy raw fish was, but Shae loved it. She was fancy like that.

“I’ve never had sushi,” Waverly replies.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya ain’t missin’ much,” she tells her, hand resting against the feathers that are her hair. Waverly closes her eyes. 

“I hated her,” Waverly mumbles, eyes still closed and lashes flickering. “Not hate, I guess. Just… Envied her”.

Nicole laughs.

“I know,” she hums, “ya ain’t slick”.

Waverly pouts.

“It just… seemed so easy, for her. She wanted you and then she just… had you”.

Nicole is not sure she appreciates being had, but she supposes that was true. There was a bridge between her and Shae, there always had been, and between them was an endless sea of past and future that could never be and could never mix together, oil floating over salt water.

She’d always felt like she was the one who had to swim her way to Shae’s shore.

“Wouldn't've been too hard for ya, ya know,” she says.

Nicole is sure she’d relented to Waverly’s every wish even before she knew she loved her.

Waverly lets out a dry, bitter sound.

“It’s still hard, you know?” she says, eyes still closed, and Nicole things she’s shielding herself from something.

From her.

“Why?” Nicole asks, because she’s been asking herself that question every night for the last two years.

Waverly breathes out and in before she opens her pretty mouth again.

“I try so hard, you know?” she says, “to just… be perfect. That usually doesn’t involve doing what I want”.

Nicole drags her short nails against Waverly’s scalp, and the girl sighs a sweet little sigh.

“‘n what is it ya want?” she asks lowly.

Waverly opens her eyes, deadly venus flytraps imploring Nicole to fly right in.

“You,” she says again.

Nicole quite likes it when she answers her like that.

“Ya got me,” she replies slowly, tentatively.

Waverly smiles something sharp, though it isn’t a blade. She’s all claws and soft grasps and the promise of red lines and light bruises.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she says, so wicked Nicole feels her bones turn to water.

And a soft little hand holds onto the back of Nicole’s neck and pulls her down down down to the center of the earth and it’s so beautiful, melting in the heated core that is Waverly’s mouth.

***

It’s so easy for Waverly to turn Nicole’s body into a thing of heat and desire and slickness so terrible and so beautiful she has trouble controlling her own hands.

And it’s so hard to keep herself from turning into a thing of instinct and wilderness when Waverly groans and moans against her mouth, pressing herself further against Nicole’s thighs.

***

“I’d never said that to anyone, before,” Waverly hums, analyzing a package of cucumber seeds, back resting against Nicole’s chest as they soak in the midday sun. 

It’s all so warm.

“Said what?” Nicole asks distractedly, too focused on the press of her chest against Waverly’s back.

Waverly hesitates for a second, clearing her throat.

“I love you,” she clarifies, and hearing that is so much better than music. “I mean, I’ve said it to Wynonna, I think”.

Nicole rests her chin on the top of the girls head.

“I never liked sayin’ it,” Nicole confides, “not even to Shae”.

Waverly shifts until her eyes meet dark brown.

“Did you?” she asks, “love her, I mean”.

Nicole smiles.

“‘course I did,” she shrugs.

Waverly thinks, sharp eyes taking in all of Nicole at once.

It’s so scary, being on the event horizon of a black hole.

“Did you… did you like me? When you were with her”.

The question is a bear trap covered by flowers and dry leaves.

Nicole does not think she wants to hide anymore, though.

“Like?” she snorts, “I loved ya back then ‘n I love ya now,” she shrugs.

Waverly widens her eyes.

Nicole knows she is not used to being loved and she is not used to honesty.

“Why were you with her, then?” she asks, and it’s a little bitter and a little ugly.

Nicole laughs.

“‘cause I liked her, too, ‘n then I loved her. ‘n ya didn’t give a damn ‘bout me”.

Nicole’s hazey brain, all warm baths and salt water, briefly registers that for a first date, there’s a lot of figuring out going on. She likes it, too.

Clean slates and whatnot.

Waverly scoffs.

“I always gave a damn about you,” she groans, “I just didn’t know what it meant”.

Nicole presses her lips against eternal softness, just because she can.

“When did ya know?” she asks slowly.

They’re so close, now, but Nicole holds her even tighter, arms pulling Waverly back towards her until it’s tough to tell when she ends and Waverly begins.

She’s not sure she knows, anyways.

“When Rosita and Wynonna brought you here with so much blood on your face I thought you were dead,” she says with lightness so fake it is cardboard.

That was four years ago, Nicole thinks to herself.

“Ya ain’t ever talk ‘bout it,” Nicole says, mostly to herself.

Waverly scoffs.

“I don’t like thinking about it,” she replies.

They breathe in the same air and they expel the same dioxides. 

“You were so… limp,” Waverly breathes out, “I remember them carrying you in and I just… I couldn’t  _ move _ . I just stared at you, and I remember it felt like… god,” Waverly sighs, “it felt like every bone in my body was being snapped in half”.

“It’s alright,” Nicole assures her with a whisper, tightening her hold and caressing honey.

Waverly breathes out.

“And I couldn’t sleep,” she says, “even though I knew you’d be alright. It freaked me out so  _ much”. _

Nicole closes her eyes and she soaks in certainty.

“And-” she laughs, “this is going to sound bad, but I just… I wouldn’t care that much, you know? If it’d been anyone else. Not Doc, not Dolls, not… Champ, or anyone else. You’re the only one who’s ever kept me awake at night”.

It’s so beautiful and so harmonic when our troubles are shared with the ones we love. 

Nicole had not had a good night’s sleep since she’d learned the taste of heaven.

Waverly groans.

“Being in love is scary,” she says.

Nicole laughs.

“It wouldn’t be love if it wasn’t” she assures her, “that’s the fun of it”.

***

“We gotta start diggin’,” Nicole tells Waverly when her phone tells her it is twelve thirty. 

“Schedule?” Waverly asks simply.

Nicole nods, and the abatement of being known so deeply and so honestly and so innocently is fresh raspberries.

***

Nicole grabs onto her own ho-mi, decidedly bigger than Waverly’s, and drags it over the grass, tracing a straight line as her back begs for mercy.

Waverly stands on the shade her house casts on them, holding her tiny digger despite Nicole telling her around three hundred times that she was supposed to use the tools she brought.

“What are you doing?” the girl asks, covering her eyes from the sun.

Nicole looks up, analyzing the line she dragged on the grass.

“Ya garden’s gonna be here. Ya gotta know where to remove the grass”.

Waverly frowns.

“You can’t kill the grass!”

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“We ain’t killin’ it,” she explains, “we gonna take it somewhere else”.

Waverly shakes her head.

“Why not over there?” she points at a far away spot, only dry soil and forgotten weeds.

Nicole huffs.

“‘cause I want it here,” she tries.

Waverly raises a defiant eyebrow. Nicole relents.

As it goes.

“It’s under ya window,” she supplies with a shrug. “I want ya to be able to see it”.

Waverly smiles something raw and sweet.

“Promise you’re planting the grass again?”

_ Who cares about some god damned grass? _

“‘course, Waves,” she answers instead.

And so Nicole kneels back on the grass, dragging the ho-mi forcefully against shallow roots as she defines a rectangle she figures is good enough.

“You’re hurting the grass,” Waverly tells her.

Nicole huffs.

“I can’t- I gotta mark it!” she replies.

Waverly stares at her with a playful glint on her eyes, soft little hand protecting them from sharp rays of life.

Nicole stands up, picking up her hat and putting it on Waverly. Her eyes are too damn pretty to burn under the sun.

“Ain’t ya gonna help?” she asks with a grin.

Waverly looks up at her with a grin of her own, and there’s balance in the way their eyes meet.

“With your murder? No, thank you,” she replies, “besides, I like the view”.

God damn her to hell.

Nicole feels her face burn bright as she splutters at the girl, turning around and tying her hair up before she resumes murdering the grass.

***

When Nicole starts to sweat too much, she removes her shirt, and she tries not to smirk at the tiny little gasp Waverly lets out upon seeing her in a sleeveless undershirt.

“C’mere,” she gestures, and Waverly dazedly nods, standing up from her spot under the shade and walking over to Nicole.

Nicole positions her shovel right under the large square of grass she’s removing, motioning for Waverly to take her place.

The girl does so, and Nicole stands right behind her, touching her thigh.

“Put ya foot up here,” she says against the smell of ginger and jasmine, “‘n ya kick it right down”.

Waverly tries her very best, and the shovel barely moves.

Nicole stifles her laughter.

“Ain’t ya the strongest lil’ thing,” she coos.

Waverly huffs.

“Let me go,” she complains, “I’m going to do it”.

Nicole watches with amusement as Waverly kicks it down and down and down, and it’s only on her fifth try that she shovel goes all the way under the grass.

Waverly lets out a sound of victory, and she’s so like Wynonna, sometimes.

Nicole smiles.

***

There’s something magic about kneeling down with someone so close to being a god as you plant seed after seed after glorious seed.

There’s something magic about giving life and watching as the center of the universe whispers names and pretty words to the soon-to-be plants.

There’s something magic about helping Waverly Earp plant a garden right under her bedroom window as the sun slowly sets, casting an orange glow on her face and on her yard and on Nicole Haught’s tired heart.

***

When the garden is done and the schedule has been dutifully followed through, Nicole smiles at Waverly, wiping her hands on her old bandana.

They sit on the front porch, the barely there sounds of a father’s ghost moving around inside. 

“I hope ya liked ya first date,” Nicole says, feet scuffling on the wooden steps.

Waverly beams, all Lemurian Quartz and Amethyst Deceivers.

“It was perfect,” she says simply, head resting on Nicole’s shoulder.

Nicole sighs, contentment and relief one and the same.

“Are we…” she swallows around sand, “are we together?”

Waverly removes her head from her shoulder, and a planet too big and too dark and all forest and unknown beasts stare into Nicole’s being.

“Is that what you want?” she asks.

Nicole prays she’s giving her the right answer, and she nods.

Waverly Earp was crafted in fairytales and made of miracles, and the impossibility sitting on Nicole’s side smiles.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend, Nicole Haught?”

Nicole’s answer comes in the shape of her lips, and it tastes like holy water when she kisses her girlfriend with the permission and the possibility of saying so.

***

Nicole had always thought she’d have to ask and maybe beg Waverly to be her girlfriend. 

But alas.

Would you look at that.

***

And because Waverly is damn cheeky like that, she tells Nicole they should go on a drive around town, and then she tells Nicole to drive over to the edge of town, and when the car is parked on the very same place where Nicole had said her first prayers, she kisses her with no shame and no hesitation and nothing but the clear water that is love and desire.

And it is so very hot inside the turquoise truck, and it is so very hot in Nicole’s core, and Waverly Earp was never anything if not wildfires which avoid all life but Nicole Haught, and her bones turn to ash and come back just to burn again, blood simmering and flesh melting, and it’s all so horrifically beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the love.  
> hope everyone is safe and doing well in this strange times.


	30. Chapter 30

20.

Nicole cannot feel the tips of her fingers as she drives home.

Her cheeks hurt, too, with the strain of the idiotic grin on her face.

***

When she gets there, she walks by Timothy, and he stares at her.

“What?” she asks, turning around.

The godless dill just looks on, inquisitive.

“We datin’ now,” she tells him, hands on her hips, “so ya gotta be real nice to her”.

She thinks he might comply, just this once.

***

Nedley narrows his eyes at her when she enters the kitchen.

She ignores him, opening the fridge and looking for whatever it is she can find which will get him out of her hair.

“Ya real giddy,” he hums, looking up from his cellphone. 

Nicole lets out a grunt.

“Ain’t tellin’ me?” he presses.

Nicole feels like the knowledge she is Waverly’s and Waverly is hers is so precious, sharing it might send barbarian armies to invade her kingdom and conquer her people.

“Ain’t giddy,” she hums, picking up a block of parmesan cheese.

It’s lovely how useless her brain is sometimes.

She sets it on the counter, wondering what the hell she’s going to do with it.

“Nothin’ ‘bout ‘em pretty girls?” Nedley raises an eyebrow with a smirk.

Nicole picks up a cleaver and sinks it right in the middle of the cheese.

He snorts.

“The cheese ain’t gonna save ya,” Nedley tells her with playful joy. “Ya fix things up with Waverly?”

Damn her god forsaken kingdom.

Nicole drops the knife, turning around so quickly Nedley almost drops his beer.

“She asked me to be her girlfriend!” she stage-whispers.

His smile is pride and it is relief and it is sheer joy.

“‘n ya said yes?” he asks, eyes glimmering with childish malice.

Nicole nods with crazed enthusiasm, and he smiles even wider.

Sometimes, Nedley looks younger than his years. Less tired.

“Ain’t that somethin’,” he hums to himself, resting a heavy hand on Nicole’s shoulder and gripping her tightly, telling her bones how to behave and her muscles how to keep her together, as he always did.

“Ain’t it somethin’,” she hums her agreement.

Nedley hands her a beer, and they drink in silence, grinning at each other, sharing a secret made of light and chlorophyll and wet soil.

***

Nicole is still not quite used to being surrounded by people who genuinely do not wish for anything but her happiness.

***

The next day, she wakes up to a good morning text, followed by a mountain of heart emojis.

Her girlfriend is so very sweet, you see.

***

She works until her palms ache and her knees burn, and for what she thinks is the first time, she absolutely cannot focus on the life underneath her fingers.

All she can think about is magnificent green much brighter and much more lively than the plants she tends to.

***

She supposes being girlfriends means she can show up unannounced, so she drives over to the Homestead after work, hands still dirty.

Her heart threatens to break her ribs when she parks her car and spots Waverly Earp sat down by her new garden.

The girl looks up with glee, and it’s evident she already knows who’s come to adore her.

Nicole waves, as she has done so many many times, and Waverly waves back.

“Howdy,” she greets, extending her arm to the girl.

Waverly grabs her hand, and Nicole doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to understand what is it about her skin that turns her body into an electrical storm.

“Thanks,” she says simply, brushing off her shorts.

Nicole doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to understand how someone can be so pretty.

And maybe because she’s got the entire universe holding onto her dirty hands with no intention of letting go, she smiles.

“I missed ya, Miss,” she says, because it is true.

Waverly giggles.

“I did, too,” she says.

It’s so strange, sharing any feeling with Waverly Earp.

It’s so delightful.

“Nedley says ya should come over for dinner,” Nicole tells her, taking off her hat and putting it on Waverly’s head.

Now, pretty things are all around us. They’re pink flowers and yellow butterflies and the insistent ladybugs who crawl all over Nicole’s garden.

Waverly Earp’s smile when she’s invited to join a family is something else entirely. 

It is the endless fields of tulips in De Bollenstreek and Monarch butterflies migrating to Mexico and that one time Nicole found an endless group of red ladybugs living under a large stone on her yard.

***

“When do ya classes start?” Nicole asks her, caressing Waverly’s hair as she reads, brow furrowed and mouth twisted with a concentrated little pout.

(Waverly has asked if Nicole wanted to do something else, she didn’t want to bore her. Nicole said there was nothing she’d rather be doing).

Waverly hums something about not caring about classes, she’s on vacation, thank you very much.

Nicole chuckles.

“Ya pretty brain tired?” she asks quietly, fingers tangling themselves on honey.

Waverly nods, eyes lifting from her book as she looks up at Nicole.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

Nicole feels the tips of her fingers tingle with the concern.

“Ya think I should’ve gone to college?” she asks slowly.

She’d never allowed herself to question it before, but it’d always felt strange, following an unpaved path.

Her feet hurt, sometimes, with all the loose stones and barren soil.

“Not really,” Waverly shrugs, “I can’t imagine you doing anything else”.

Nicole couldn’t, either. Sometimes, she wondered if that wasn’t a problem.

“It’s a weird job,” Nicole tries. “Gardenin’”.

Waverly lays the book over her stomach with a small smile.

“All jobs are a little weird,” she says.

Nicole shakes her head.

“Ya job ain’t,” she replies.

Waverly grins.

“I don’t have a job”.

“Ya gonna, though. A real fancy one, too,” Nicole retorts.

Waverly snickers.

“Am I, now?” she smiles, “and what job is that?”

Nicole blushes.

“Ain’t know, but it’s fancy. All history ‘n those damn dead languages ya like”.

Waverly stares up at her as if she’s the one who planted the very first seed on earth, and it’s so strange, being adored.

“You’re cute,” she says.

Nicole feels the blush reaching her chest, and she lets out a strangled groan.

“Ain’t cute,” she whines.

Waverly giggles.

“Why are you worried, anyways?” she asks.

Nicole shrugs with affected carelessness.

“Shae always said I should figure it out,” she says lowly, “my future, I mean”.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“Isn’t it figured?” she asks.

“I ain’t sure gardenin’ for people less rich than her counts as a future on her head,” Nicole grunts. “She thought I should go to college with her in Vancouver”.

Waverly hums.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she breathes out.

Nicole smiles.

“Me too”.

Waverly reaches up, soft little hand smoothing out the creases on Nicole’s brow with so much tenderness Nicole almost thinks of herself as a gentle thing.

“I like that my girlfriend is a gardener,” she says with a hint of mischief and with pride so obvious it is blinding, “who else would help me plant a garden?”

Nicole supposes that’s true.

“What if ya get some real big shot job and some real nice university?”

You see, Nicole’s problem is very rarely with who she is.

It’s terribly often with what she’s seen at by others. Wasted potential and dirty fingernails and a little too slow and too much of a damned cowboy.

“What about it?” Waverly furrows her brow, all perfect curiosity and innocent doubt.

“‘n we still together,” Nicole says under her breath, face an uncomfortable shade of red.

Waverly rubs her cheek against her thigh.

“Then I’d be a big shot professor and you’d be a big shot gardener and we’d make a pretty cool couple”.

Nicole thinks of the future Waverly had promised her in the shape of business cards, and she reminds herself that her love had always been made up of encouragement.

“Ya was one of the first one’s to tell me to be who I wanted to be,” Nicole tells herself, and Waverly so happens to listen.

“So were you,” Waverly tells her with a grin.

Nicole supposes that’s true.

***

She knows it already, but it’s still astounding to realize love can be reassurance and the promise of a hand to hold.

Nicole had gotten used to seeing love as the promise of heartbreak, though. It was a little funny, it being the belief that we can be better. 

Waverly Earp was not the reason Nicole was who she was, but she was the motivation for her to be the very best version of that.

***

When Wynonna Earp comes barging in Waverly’s room, the girl barely moves, craning her neck just slightly so she can look over at her sister.

Nicole loves the feeling of her soft hair on her thighs. 

“Didn’t know Mrs. Incredible was here,” Wynonna greets, plopping down on Waverly’s desk chair before slowly rolling it over to her bed.

“Hey, Wynonna,” Nicole greets pointedly, rolling her eyes.

“Is she moving in with us or something?” Wynonna groans.

Waverly huffs.

“Stop being mean,” she retorts.

Wynonna clicks her tongue.

“I’ll take that as a yes”.

“Quit ya whinin’,” Nicole says.

Wynonna sighs heavily, slowly slipping down the chair.

“I can’t believe you guys are even more insufferable now,” she whines, “thought being all cutesy little girlfriends would make you less annoying”.

Nicole feels her muscles relax and her skin warm up at the knowledge that Waverly had shared with her sister something she would’ve hidden not too long ago.

“You’re jealous because I stole your best friend,” Waverly points out, eyes focused on her book.

Wynonna scoffs, and it’s so forceful it sounds like she’s choking.

“Best friend?” she scoffs again, for good measure, “right”.

Nicole smirks.

“You can keep fire crotch,” Wynonna continues, intent on letting them know she does not care about Nicole Haught, “I don’t care”.

Nicole only laughs.

***

When Nicole opens the car door for Waverly, she barely even settles on her seat before she’s shuffling about inside the glove compartment.

“Donovan?” she snickers.

Nicole climbs onto her seat before narrowing her eyes at the girl.

“It’s a classic,” she informs Waverly with a scowl.

“It’s old people music,” Waverly retorts.

“Ya ain’t have no respect for nothin’,” Nicole grunts, “pick somethin’ else, then”.

Waverly giggles, and it’s too sweet for Nicole to really care about her criticism.

She settles for  _ West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. _

Nicole clicks her tongue.

“Ya ain’t gonna like it,” she warns.

Waverly rolls her eyes. 

“We’ll see”.

***

She does not like, so she changes it after two songs, putting in  _ Bon Iver’s  _ self titled.

She loved that one, Nicole knew.

Something about silly love songs, she supposes.

***

Nedley smiles from across the table, staring at Waverly as if she’s the reason the earth is round.

Nicole squirms.

“Ya bein’ weird, sir,” she tells him.

He grumbles as Waverly giggles.

“Have some respect,” he complains, “I’m happy for ya two, ‘s all”.

Waverly looks at him with longing.

“Ya take care of this one, eh?” he winks, “wild little thin’, she is”.

Nicole grumbles.

“Ya embarrasin’ me,” she groans, stabbing her food.

Waverly giggles.

“I’l try, sir”.

***

That she does.

***

Their second date is easy.

Nicole still writes their schedule down, though Waverly’s the one who came up with it, and she thinks it’d be nice to keep that as an habit.

To write down date after date after date, god willing, until they die.

Nicole doesn’t think of herself as a particularly romantic person, but she has her moments.

***

“What changed it for ya?” she hums, sipping on a glass of wine as they lay on her front porch, vegan pizza long forgotten.

Timothy smiles at them from his ever growing spot of land, and she smiles back.

Waverly looks over at her with raised eyebrows.

“What changed what?”

Nicole shrugs.

“Ain’t it a lil’ weird, goin’ from hatin’ me to bein’ my girlfriend?” she asks, though there’s no bitterness in her tone.

Waverly rolls her eyes, and then she smiles.

“Say that again,” she says, poking Nicole’s thigh with a sly smile.

“That ya hated me?” Nicole grins.

Waverly slaps her.

“The other thing”.

Nicole chuckles.

“That ya my girlfriend?”

Waverly blushes, all fresh tomatoes and ripe cherry, and Nicole wonders how long it will take for her little bird to settle inside his home.

“I never hated you,” she says seriously, “I guess I just didn’t… have the guts to… to love you”.

She says it like it’s a holy word, crowned with thorns.

“You know what I can’t get over?” she whispers. Nicole holds onto her knee, squeezing lightly, “how you treated me after I broke your heart”.

Nicole says nothing, and Timothy nods at her.

“Even when we weren’t… friends,” she shrugs, “you never hated me”.

“I can’t hate ya, ya know that”.

“You should’ve. It’d be easier, I think”.

Nicole chuckles.

“I ain’t lookin’ for easy, though, am I?” she asks the pretty girl with her legs tangled around her own as her garden adores them both, “if I knew ya didn’t give a damn, I guess I could’ve let go. But I knew ya loved me, if just a little bit”.

“How?”

Nicole smiles down at her.

“‘cause I’m the person ya call when ya need to forget the roughness”.

Waverly rubs her cheek against Nicole’s, a little kitten claiming her ownership.

***

It’s silent and it is comfortable.

“I’m who I want to be,” Waverly whispers, “when I’m with you. That’s what changed, I guess. I realized it”.

Instead of hot blade, there are orchids growing and tangling themselves on Nicole’s ribs, and it’s so sweet, having someone else tending to her garden.

***

Nicole chews on her sandwich quietly, ignoring the loud noises Wynonna makes beside her.

“Hey,” Wynonna says suddenly, mouth still full.

Nicole looks up at her.

“Hm?” Nicole hums, focused on the dangling bacon attempting to jump off her sandwich.

“Been a month yet?” Wynonna asks.

Nicole raises an eyebrow.

“That you two are together,” she adds.

Nicole shakes her head.

“Not yet”.

Wynonna hums.

“She’s… she’s happy. With you,” she says, and Nicole is aware it pains her to compliment her, as strange as the compliment is. “Lighter”.

Nicole smiles.

“I’m glad,” she replies.

“Don’t break her heart, big boy,” Wynonna warns, “I’ve been needing a new rug”.

Nicole laughs.

“Ain’t tryin’ to”.

***

“Ain’t that pretty,” Nicole comments, hands resting on her hips as she takes in the sprouting little fellows gracing Waverly’s garden with their shy but unquestionable life.

Waverly beams from beside her, hands holding onto her forearm and telling Nicole she is there and she is warm.

“Juliet’s super big,” she points at the three inch tall eggplant.

Nicole snorts.

“Almost as tall as ya,” she says before she can stop herself.

Waverly slaps her stomach.

“Not everyone’s six foot tall,” she groans.

“Not quite six,” Nicole retorts, pressing her lips against honeycomb hair.

Because she can.

“You’re lucky it’s hot,” Waverly grumbles.

Ain’t that something.

“Is it?” Nicole asks lowly, looking down at her.

Waverly grunts something under her breath, nosing Nicole’s arm. 

***

The lightness is strange.

Nicole is not used to not having to think and rethink her every word around Waverly. She’s not used to her not being a scared kitten, scurrying and hiding away.

She can’t say she misses it, though.

It’s nice, the warmth on her lap.

***

Maybe because Nicole’s life is going too well, or maybe because god hates her, she’s sitting with Nedley, hearing him going on about how incompetent Lonnie is, when he looks up with a strange expression, and he opens his damn mouth.

“Chicken?” he starts, and his apprehension in itself is enough to make Nicole cringe.

“Yeah?”

He breathes in, mustache trembling the way it did when she’d told him she was his niece, and she tugs on her sweater without intention.

“Ya think ‘bout ya parents much?” he asks.

It’s not an unusual topic, really, but it’s uncomfortable, and she grimaces as the thorny words make their way inside her ears.

She shrugs.

Nedley sighs deeply.

“Ain’t ya curious? ‘bout what happened to ‘em?”

Nicole grunts.

“My father can rot in hell for all I care,” she tells him, “ya my damn dad, not him”.

Nedley sighs again, tired, though he smiles something made of orange zest and lime juice.

“‘n my sister?” he asks her, “she rottin’, too?”

There’s something strange in his voice. Longing, perhaps. Regret.

Nicole likes him best when he is tangy and sweet.

“I ain’t thinkin’ ‘bout her,” she says, looking down at the varnished wood of their dinner table. 

Nedley smiles.

“I don’t like it, either,” he tells her earnestly, “but I think we should”.

“Whatcha want, uh?” she asks, voice too low and tone too bristly. “For me to go back there ‘n get ‘em lights knocked out of me?”

She doesn’t like herself when she’s scared.

“Nicole Haught,” he starts, and in moments like these she’s reminded why he is the Sheriff of a town so filled with strange dangers and ghost stories, “ya ain’t twelve no more, ya hear? Ain’t no one gonna raise a hand to ya, ‘n if they do, ya hittin’ ‘em right back”.

She  _ did  _ break Robert’s nose that one time.

“I ain’t forcin’ ya to do nothin’,” he says, less serious, “but I wanna know if my sister’s alive ‘n I want ya to come know with me”.

Nicole sighs.

“When?” she asks him.

“When ya ready,” he promises her.

She thinks of sticky aloe vera being rubbed over her burnt knees when she’d knelt on too-hot sand, twelve years ago.

“Can Waverly come with us?” she asks, distracting herself with the thought of soft lips and threatening planets.

Nedley smiles, and somehow it tells her he’d already taken that as a given.

***

Nicole sits down by Waverly’s feet, head resting on her knees as she sips on the terrible wine Doc had supplied them with.

“You two make a nice couple,” Dolls remarks with a rare smile. 

She winks at him. 

“Don’t be gross,” Wynonna chastises, downing her bourbon.

Nicole isn’t sure what’s gross about it, but again, she’s never sure when it comes to Wynonna Earp.

Rosita snickers, and Nicole can  _ feel  _ the sharp look Waverly sends her way.

There’d been a strange tension between them, confusing in it’s unexpectedness. Nicole hadn’t felt it before.

She stands up, asking Waverly if she wants anything before moving silently towards the kitchen. The door closes behind her, but then it opens again.

“Can you get me some white wine?” asks Rosita, voice soft and unthreatening as Nicole pokes her head inside the fridge. 

She does so.

“Waverly’s being weird,” the girl points out.

Nicole shrugs, apologetic.

“Thought ya two were friends,” she replies.

Rosita shrugs, too.

“We are,” she replies with strange certainty, “guess she’s just not used to having someone”.

Nicole frowns.

“Ya think she’s jealous?” she asks tentatively. 

Rosita snorts, hand resting on Nicole’s shoulder.

“You’re too innocent for your own good,” she says, slapping Nicole’s cheek with affection.

Waverly walks in, because of course she does.

“Uh,” she grunts, “hey”.

Nicole looks over, and venus flytraps stare back. 

“Ya need somethin’?” she asks.

“Just wondering what was taking so long,” she replies, an edge of dryness to her voice.

Rosita grumbles something before walking out of the kitchen.

Waverly narrows her eyes at Nicole, and Nicole downs her glass of wine.

She never dealt well with emotions, generally speaking.

“Ya good?” she asks slowly.

Waverly blinks.

“Am I good?” she asks Nicole.

Nicole blinks, too.

“Uh,” she looks around the kitchen, begging the cupboards to help her out, “ya… good?” she tries again.

“I’m great, Nicole,” Waverly says, very much not great.

“Ya jealous?” Nicole asks without thinking.

“Should I be?” Waverly asks, hands resting on her hips, and Nicole can’t help but snort at how adorable she is when she is trying to be angry.

“Nah,” she hums, walking up to her. She thinks of lion tamers, and briefly considers holding onto a chair. “Ya shouldn’t”.

Waverly huffs.

“Stop smirkin’,” she says.

Nicole smirks.

“Ya know ya ain’t have nothin’ to worry ‘bout, Miss Waverly,” she points out, “I think ya just bein’ cheeky”.

Waverly grunts, and it’d be threatening, perhaps, if she were a little less… small.

“I’m not being cheeky,” she retorts, weakly avoiding Nicole’s touch.

Nicole settles her hands on the girl’s hips, anyhow.

“Ya bein’ cheeky alright,” Nicole says lowly.

“She likes you,” Waverly points out, and there’s n edge of vulnerability in her voice which speaks of absent families and untrustworthy friends.

Nicole knows her better then she knows herself.

“‘n I love ya,” she whispers, holding just a little tighter, “ya know I ain’t give a damn ‘bout no one else,” she tells her, because it is true.

Waverly huffs.

“Stop being charming,” she groans.

Nicole grins, and she likes to think it’s a little wolfish.

“Waverly Earp,” she says, tilting the girl’s head up until she’s staring into the infinite beauty that is her greenery, “I ain’t ya dad, ‘n I ain’t ya friends”.

Waverly sighs.

“I know”.

“I didn’t leave before, yeah? Ain’t doin’ it now that I’ve got ya”.

Waverly smiles, the bright, honest, clear kind of smile which crumples Nicole’s bones and turns her blood into melted glass.

“That’s another reason,” she hums, diffusing herself over Nicole’s skin, arms ever tighter around her waist.

“Another reason for what?” Nicole asks.

Waverly breathes in the smell of freshly cut grass.

“For being with you,” she whispers, “I know you won’t leave”.

Nicole holds her tighter. 

“Say what, Miss Waverly,” she says, and she’s never heard herself sound quite this predatory, “why don’t we go upstairs ‘n I show ya just how much ya don’t have to worry ‘bout no one else?”

And Waverly Earp shudders against her.

***

Nicole knew, has known, really, that there was a hint of pleasure she felt when it came to jealousy.

She knew desire, and she knew it a little too well and for a little too long. 

And those two so often came hand in hand, you see.

***

So it was almost natural, expected, swift and smooth and instinctual, pushing Waverly Earp inside the bathroom of the Homestead, the bathroom with the too-cold tiles and the lifeless decoration, the same bathroom she’d fucked Shae Pressman as if it was an obligation so many months ago, and crashing against the small little frame as if it is the only thing capable of keeping her alive.

And Nicole Haught feels like it is, really, when her tongue brushes against wet lips and desperate gasps and against  _ Waverly  _ and she feels such bizarre, intense pleasure she worries she is maybe too drunk or maybe high or maybe dying, because it is not normal and it is not natural for a body made of skin and blood and bones to bring her so much delight.

But it does, of course it does, because her chest presses against Waverly’s chest, and she holds her against the cold tiles, pretty little arms above her pretty little head, and she kisses her with so much filthy intention she can feel the warmth of Hades burn within her.

Waverly lets out a delightful and sinful gasp, and she whines when Nicole’s lips find the lobe of her ear and the delicious stretch of skin on the crook of her neck, and she bucks forward, pressing herself against Nicole’s thigh, shuddering when Nicole blows on wet skin and hissing when she bites down.

“Ya such a pretty lil’ thing,” she hums against Waverly’s mouth, relishing the quick, short gasps she lets out as Nicole’s fingers move up up up over her thigh, a promise as certain as it is distant.

Waverly closes her eyes tightly and desperately.

“Please,” she lets out, and Nicole cannot help the low growl which reverberates in her throat at the sight of Hedone begging  _ her  _ for pleasure.

“Please what?” she asks slowly, deliberately.

Waverly whines, forehead resting against Nicole’s chest when she tightens her grip on her wrist, sighing when Nicole’s hand reaches under her sweater and brushes over the soft, taut skin of her abdomen.

And Nicole Haught has had a few glasses of wine and she’s touched herself too many times with Waverly’s name on her lips for her to hold back.

“Please what, little one?” she asks again, firmer, nails dragging over shivering skin.

It’s funny, really, how different she is. She’d never felt this way, not with Shae, not by herself, not ever, but Waverly Earp is a pretty little thing made of white fur, and she so very often turns Nicole Haught into a being of sharp claws and dangerous teeth.

“ _ Anything,” _ Waverly begs, and Nicole is sure she’d collapse if she wasn’t holding her tightly against the wall.

She moves her hand up, and her palm burns with how hot Waverly’s skin is, until she reaches fabric again.

“Is this alright?” she asks, lips close to Waverly’s ear, and the girl nods.

Nicole bites down, just because she can, and Waverly hisses and whines before Nicole’s mouth is on hers and she can no longer speak.

Her hand reaches again, and there’s a vibrant jolt of electricity rushing through her when she palms at Waverly’s chest and the girl melts under her fingertips.

And then she grunts, because she’s always been such a steadfast little thing, and she wiggles until Nicole releases her wrists, and then Nicole swallows needles and feels her skin prickling with them, because Waverly pulls her sweater over her head.

She’s so very pretty, you see.

“Ya too damn beautiful,” Nicole speaks, and Waverly has the decency to blush before she’s pulling Nicole by her shirt, and their lips clash again.

Nicole feels a little brave and a little cool and really too god damn lustful, so she palms at bra-clad breasts and she drinks in Waverly’s moans and she’s blind and deaf and nothing at the feeling of soft, yielding skin and the press of taut nipples against her hands.

She reaches behind Waverly, releasing her lips and asking her a silent question, and Waverly only nods with a small little smile before she’s kissing her again.

Nicole thanks god almighty she manages to unclasp the garment on her first try, and Waverly all but throws it somewhere beside them, pressing herself further against Nicole, and Nicole cannot help but push  _ in,  _ right thigh meeting Waverly’s core and absorbing her warmth as Waverly grinds against her.

It’s filthy, grinding against her, palming at her breasts and pinching her nipples until Waverly has to bite down on Nicole’s bicep to keep herself from screaming, and they sweat, half clothed inside a too-hot bathroom with tiles so warm they burn, and Nicole does not believe she’s ever felt her blood boil as it does and she’s never been this close to Hell and Heaven and she’s just never been this fucking  _ wet  _ in her god damned life.

She grunts, teeth clattering at sheer want, and she takes in a deep breath before she allows herself to take in Waverly’s chest for the very first time.

Waverly doesn’t let her dwell too much on mortality or alcohol poisoning, because she reaches for her, hands pulling on short cropped hair she’d cut herself two weeks ago, and she pulls Nicole forward until she bites down on her nipple, and Waverly does cry out, this time, center pressing so tightly against Nicole’s thigh Nicole has to press her down to keep them upright.

Nicole licks and sucks and  _ bites  _ on skin so soft and so delicious, peach ripe and sweet and dripping, and she cannot think of anything else but the taste and the warmth and the everything that is having her tongue roll over Waverly’s hard nipples and soft breasts, palming and digging her nails with so much desperation she’d worry for Waverly Earp, but the girl moans and whines and all but yells above her.

And then she stops, taking a deep breath and kissing Waverly’s breasts one last time before she stands upright again, kissing lips slick with spit and warm with cursing. 

“Ya done gonna kill me,” she whispers against Waverly’s soft breathing.

Waverly whines.

_ “ _ Why’d you stop?” she asks, eyes wide and chest rising and falling with heavy desperation.

Nicole smiles, thumbs caressing her cheeks.

“‘cause ya too damn hot ‘n I ain’t no saint,” she replies. “Our first time shouldn’t be on ya damn bathroom, baby”.

Waverly, shirtless, sweaty and bruised, back slick against bathroom tiles, blushes at the term.

“Baby,” she repeats.

“Is that okay?” Nicole asks her, eyebrows raised in worry.

Waverly kisses her, and it’s a very good answer.

_ *** _

Nicole can feel her cheeks burning even before she’s descended the stairs, and she stalls by the steps, fixing her hair with too much care.

Waverly snorts beside her, holding her hand with a reassuring tightness.

“Wynonna knows I’m not a virgin, you know,” she snickers.

Nicole groans.

“She’s gonna kill me,” she whispers, “she’s gonna know I was all over ya… all over  _ ya  _ ‘n she’s gonna kill me ‘n skin me ‘n turn me into a rug”.

__ Waverly laughs.

“Are you seriously scared of  _ Wynonna?” _ she asks in disbelief, “come on, she knows we’re  _ dating”. _

Nicole takes a deep breath.

***

Her foot has not reached the living room floor when Wynonna starts her yelling.

“Nicole Haught!” she points at her, eyes narrowed, “are you fucking kidding me?”

Nicole swallows around nothing.

“We’re dating, Wynonna,” Waverly retorts easily, pulling Nicole by her hand and settling on her armchair as if she hadn’t just put on her bra. 

“Can’t you at least wait until I’m gone to  _ fuck  _ under my  _ roof?”  _ Wynonna says, gasping and reveling in her own theatrics.

Doc snickers, rolling up a cigarette with a stupid grin on his stupid face.

Nicole clenches her jaw so tightly she worries for her teeth.

“I literally walked in on you and Dolls on the kitchen last week,” Waverly replies with narrowed eyes, “so no, I don’t think so”.

Nicole had never seen Dolls look embarrassed before, but there ya have it.

It’s nice, dating the only living person who’s tired enough of Wynonna’s melodrama to call her out on it with no fear of being shot or buried alive or turned into a rug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s i n


	31. Chapter 31

20.

The weather is strange.

The cold is crisp, though it does not bite.

Purgatory always had a way of making Nicole feel at home.

***

Juliet gives Waverly two tiny little eggplants before she withers for the season, and the girl is so happy and so proud Nicole feels like she’s a reflection of herself.

***

“I think you’d like this one,” says Waverly, waving  _ The Portrait of Dorian Gray  _ in front of Nicole’s face. 

Nicole grunts.

“I ain’t too good a reader,” she tells the girl again.

She had a nightmare once, where Waverly made her read a big book and then asked her question after question after question about it.

She did not know the answer to any of them.

“There’s no such thing as a bad reader,” Waverly points out, sitting down beside her on Nicole’s bed. “Besides, I’m not a good gardener and I still garden!”

Nicole smiles up at her.

“That ain’t the same,” she says with a raised eyebrow.

Waverly clicks her tongue.

“Yes it is,” she hums, “it’s your girlfriend homework”.

Nicole chuckles, reaching for the book.

“Homework, is it?” she sighs, “didn’t know datin’ ya was so much work”.

Waverly smiles despite herself, slapping Nicole’s shoulder.

***

It’s a lie, of course.

Being with Waverly Earp is the easiest thing Nicole has ever done.

***

“What was your first time like?” Waverly asks, feet resting over Nicole’s thighs and pretty face shielded by the shade of Nicole’s garden.

Every few minutes, she reaches for it, picking out a basil leaf or some rosemary or thyme, smashing them in her fingers and bringing the leaves up to her face.

Waverly breathes in Nicole’s life, then, bringing it deep into Poseidon’s realm.

Nicole likes how she looks when she wears her hat and is framed by her friends.

“With Shae,” she answers quietly, cheeks just the tiniest tinge of red.

Waverly huffs, and she smiles as she rips up a basil leaf, handing a few pieces to Nicole.

Nicole knows the smell as well as she knows the color of her hair, but she brings it up to her nose anyways.

“I knew that already,” she clarifies, “I mean how was it,” she says pointedly.

“Ain’t ya think it’s a lil’ weird, talkin’ ‘bout it with ya?”

Waverly groans.

“Just answer the question, Nicole Haught”.

Nicole exhales.

“It was nice,” she shrugs.

Waverly snorts.

“That’s it?”

Nicole looks up at her, eyes narrowed.

“What the hell do ya wanna know?” she asks, grinning, “how many damn fingers were involved?”

Waverly blushes, bright and scarlet.

Nicole laughs.

“It was nice, ‘s all. Not Shae’s first, too, so that helped, I think,” she shrugs, “less confusin’”.

Waverly hums.

She stares down at her hands, fingers pinching a few rosemary leaves.

“Mine was awful,” she says quietly, and there’s something uncomfortably close to shame in the tone of her voice.

Nicole touches her calf, squeezing lightly to remind her she’s there, now. 

“Who was it?” Nicole asks deliberately.

Waverly huffs.

“Champ,” she says, eyes still cast downwards. She shrugs. “It hurt”.

Nicole tightens her jaw, fingers squeezing a little tighter around Waverly’s legs.

“It was the last time I was with him, too,” Waverly shrugs, putting down the rosemary, “couldn’t really… look at him, after it”.

Nicole stands from a place which is not her own and she feels her teeth chattering inside her mouth.

“Ya deserved better,” she lets out, voice low. 

Her throat feels dry and scratchy.

Waverly shrugs.

“It was… good, in a way,” she says after a moment, finally looking up, “I always thought my first time would be with a boy,” she purses her lips, “so it’s nice, getting it out of the way”.

Nicole is not sure she follows the multitude of repression and trauma and misplaced love behind that statement, but she’s learned Waverly Earp is a maze in which she cannot always drag her thread around. 

“Ya only… only once?” Nicole asks.

Waverly snorts.

“Yup,” she says simply, “despite popular belief”.

Nicole frowns.

“Whaddaya mean?” she asks, moving closer until she shares the same shade, slowly lying down with her head on Waverly’s lap.

The girl looks down, smiling, and her fingers move to lose themselves in red hair.

“You know what I mean, Nicole”.

Nicole remembers Robert going on about Earps and spreading legs and the awful snickering after parties and the predatory looks Waverly Earp did not seem to be able to escape.

She kisses Waverly’s clothed knee.

“Sometimes I think we came from different planets,” she says.

Waverly chuckles.

“I’m glad we have spaceships, then”.

***

Nicole falls asleep with her head on Waverly Earp’s lap as she listens to the girl telling her garden about the storming of the Bastille, but she cannot focus on the French Revolution.

She thinks about how she can make Waverly forget Champ Hardy and pain, and she guesses sometimes first times can get a redo.

They always did work best on their second time around.

***

Despite schedules, Nicole was never good at planning per se.

She was not creative, really, and it was quite hard, trying to predict what Waverly’s perfect first time would be like.

Planning is always a tricky thing.

And she knows Waverly is not quite happy about her overzealousness, either.

She’s insistent, always was, and she presses herself against Nicole’s thighs and she’s all too eager to bring her hands to the safe haven underneath her shirt and she gasps and she whines, but Nicole feels sinful and  _ wrong,  _ a venomous snake telling Eve to taste the apple, so she stops and she keeps her hands to herself and she ignores every cell in her body in the name of perfection and properness.

***

Nicole leans over, weight pressing her knees down into the dirt, and she tries to reach for the single stubborn weed growing right under Sherlock.

“Come here ya lil’ devil,” she groans, trying to avoid the small branches pushing off her hat.

The sun is a comfortable kind of warm, consistent and fresh but not oppressive, and she feels good as she revels on the feeling of cold, wet earth digging against her jeans.

“Having fun?” asks the sweetest voice in the world.

Nicole hits her head against Sherlock’s branches.

“Waves,” she yelps.

She hears the girl giggling as she struggles to stand upright, weed very much still under Sherlock.

There’s a strange glint in Waverly’s eyes, and it reminds Nicole of tangling grapevines suffocating whatever they get their stems on.

“Hey, baby,” she greets, voice low as she steps up to the girl who is made of clay and holy seeds.

Waverly smiles.

“Hey,” she returns.

There’s something not too unrelated to the orbit of planet Venus in the way they meet, Nicole leaning down ever so gently as Waverly stands on the tips of her toes.

They kiss, and Nicole does not think she will ever get her bird to settle inside it’s home with the taste of Waverly Earp and the freshness of mint on her lips.

She looks into oak trees and bird nests.

“Didn’t know ya was comin’ over,” she says with a smile which speaks of relief.

Waverly shrugs.

“I’m unemployed,” she says with a smile, “lots of free time”.

Nicole smiles back, though she cannot say she’d told her lips to do so.

Waverly Earp had always been such a natural part of who she was, really.

“Ya hungry?” she asks, because she likes nurture and she loves Waverly Earp and the thought of nurturing her is sugar cane on her tongue.

Waverly shakes her head.

“I just missed you,” she shrugs with sweetness so pure it is see-through.

Nicole missed her, too, as one would miss their bones.

***

She asks Waverly to wait, she has to get rid of this weed and clip some of her plants, and Waverly smiles at her, all cheeky and patient and loving, and Nicole is so very glad she has been born into a world charitable enough to gift her with love.

***

Nicole’s skin blisters and burns and melts at the feeling of two green eyes taking in her every move, following her as she clips branches and stems and sweats under the two suns which illuminate her garden.

Her spine tingles.

“Ya havin’ fun?” she grunts, removing her hat as she runs her fingers through strands of red.

Waverly beams from her spot in the front porch.

“I am,” she says with a grin.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Ya ain’t helpin’ me?” she asks hopelessly.

Waverly chuckles.

“You’ve got it, babe”.

***

The air is thick, and it tastes tangy and strong as Nicole walks up to Waverly, trickles of sweat slowly running down her back as she takes off her hat.

“Howdy,” she smirks, all too aware of Waverly’s eyes on her every move.

Waverly narrows her eyes with something too close to hunger.

“You done?” she asks.

Nicole only nods, reaching for her hand before walking inside.

She feels different.

The air is heavy, pressing down against her skin, and Waverly’s hand is too hot.

“What ya thinkin’ ‘bout?” she asks quietly as they walk up the stairs.

Waverly hums.

“You”.

Nicole’s breath is sharp and it drags it’s claws against her lungs.

“Me?” she asks.

Her voice is alien as it rings on her ears.

Waverly hums.

“You,” she says again.

She was always so full of intent.

Nicole knew it was useless, really, trying to fight against it.

***

For a while, it is normal.

They talk, and Waverly tells her about how excited she is that her classes will start soon, and how sticky Wynonna is, and she laughs when Nicole says she’d always been so jealous.

Nicole tells her about her garden and about how she still isn’t sure what she will do when Winter comes, and Waverly listens attentively and with no judgement as she rests her head on Nicole’s chest, and it is sweet, sharing a space and the air and a bed and their deepest worries.

***

But Waverly has always been so filled with intent, you see.

***

It’s a little shy at first.

Waverly is skittish, little hands gliding aimlessly up and down Nicole’s thighs, no purpose beyond that of sharing warmth and feeling skin and fabric.

Nicole looks down, grinning, and Waverly Earp kisses her, hungry and wet and delectable. 

“Hey,” Nicole whispers against her lips.

Waverly smiles before kissing her again.

Nicole feels her heart start up a song she’s become all too accustomed to, an endless crescendo stronger than what Nicole could ever think possible, and her thighs turn to wax and they melt, the indentations of Waverly’s fingers deep and ghastly even over her jeans.

An impossibly colored orchid looks on as Waverly turns around slowly, knees settling against Nicole’s thighs as her lips sink so many ships Nicole cannot help but think of her as a Cetus, and it’s appropriate, really, that  _ Paphiopedilum  _ is an homage to the temple where Aphrodite was worshipped.

Nicole’s hands move the way her lungs expand, reaching with too much familiarity for Waverly’s hips, and they settle there, keeping her grounded or pulling her down into hell, she cannot be sure.

She liked it, having to crane her neck up to meet Waverly’s lips, and she liked the feeling of the girl sat atop her lap.

There was powerful powerlessness in being at her mercy.

Waverly sinks down, somehow, and Nicole reaches up to Elysium as she’s dragged down into Hades.

She pulls away.

“Waves,” she groans. 

Waverly sighs dejectedly.

“What?” she aks, annoyance clear in her tone, and Nicole hates that it makes her stomach twist.

“We gotta… slow down,” she tries, though she cannot bring herself to remove her hands from Waverly’s hips.

Waverly looks down at her, fingers playing with the hairs on the back of Nicole’s neck, and the shade of green which swallows her whole is entirely unfamiliar.

“Do you not want me?” she asks suddenly, and the vulnerability behind the strength in her tone is the fresh spiciness of wasabi on the roof of Nicole’s mouth.

She sighs.

“‘course I do,” she replies, thumbs caressing Waverly’s side.

Waverly tightens her grip on Nicole’s hair with feral affection.

She narrows her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” 

Nicole swallows razor blades and feels them slide down her throat.

“Nothin’s wrong,” she assures the girl, “I just… want it to be proper ‘s all”.

Waverly smiles, and the waves crashing around them slow until they’re only ripples.

“I think you’re a little too proper,” she whispers.

Nicole feels her ears turn a little red.

She looks down.

“It has to be… perfect, ya know,” she says, embarrassed with the childishness of the thought.

Waverly tugs on her hair until she meets her eyes again.

“It will be,” she shrugs, “it’s with you”.

Nicole swallows feathers.

She gestures around them.

“This ain’t… special,” she pleads.

Waverly rolls her eyes, pulling on Nicole’s hair until they’re mere inches away.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t care?” she asks, sweetness threatening.

Nicole tightens her jaw at the tone.

“Miss Waverly-” she implores.

Waverly tugs, electricity coursing through Nicole’s vein at the feeling, and then they’re kissing, all tongue and spit and greedy desire.

Nicole pulls away only when her lungs burn, desperate for oxygen.

“Baby,” Waverly whispers, and it sounds so  _ dirty  _ Nicole feels the familiar boiling water inside the pit of her stomach melt away everything but her core. “If you’re not ready, that’s okay,” Waverly assures her, fingers playing with copper strands with a strenuous balance of sin and love, “but I’m not going to break”.

Nicole pulls her down by her shirt, teeth clashing.

“Ya sure?” she asks, because she is so very sure.

Her body has decided for her a very long time ago.

“Don’t make me beg, cowboy” Waverly bites, and Nicole likes her like this, this sure of herself, this certain she was made by god’s hand and put on earth with purpose, no matter how filthy it can be, “because I might”.

Nicole swallows around her own pride and her own longing and the air is thick with famine.

Nothing clicks and nothing changes. There’s no shift in the air or in her heart, but she was never able to decide for Waverly Earp, and she was always dependant on her explicitness.

So Nicole flips them over, sudden and decisive, Waverly yelping in delighted surprise as her back meets the mattress, hair a halo around her pretty face, and Nicole settles over her, thighs pressing against her sides as she smiles down at the prettiest damn thing she ever did see.

Waverly smiles back.

Nicole feels her hands shake as she cups Waverly’s cheeks, but she ignores it as she leans down.

Waverly Earp tastes like milk and honey.

Just for the hell of it, Nicole bites down on Waverly’s lower lip, and the little whine which crashes against her own tongue is enough to wash down any lingering doubts, so she allows her hands to reach under soft cotton, tentative fingers tracing dangerous lines against taut, soft skin, and she quite likes the way Waverly’s skin trembles under the promise of her touch.

Waverly wiggles under her, and she has to stop herself from giggling as pulls away, smiling as Waverly pulls off her shirt so quickly she almost gets stuck.

“Someone’s eager,” Nicole comments, eyes darting over skin so unblemished and so untouched she feels guilty.

Waverly whines under her, and she allows her fingernails to graze up and down her stomach, leaving pretty little red lines on her skin.

“It’s not my fault,” she groans, tugging on Nicole’s shirt. 

Nicole allows soft little hands to hold onto it, and she raises her arms as Waverly peels it off her body with a strange sort of reverence.

Waverly stops breathing.

Nicole looks down at her, not self conscious but rather sanguine, because she knows desire.

Bamboo takes in her pale skin, darting to and fro with desperate attention, and Nicole allows it, sitting back as her fingers tell love stories to the girl’s skin.

“God,” Waverly breathes out dazedly, and Nicole smirks.

“Ain’t sure he’d approve,” she confides, and then she reaches for her sports bra, because who gives a damn, really, and she pulls it up.

Waverly’s eyes cause blisters and welts on her skin, and then the girl sits up, arms holding onto Nicole’s waist and holding her close, and Nicole has to keep herself from grunting in sheer surprise as the softest skin comes into contact with her breasts.

Waverly speaks of fiery adoration as she traces pointless paths over her skin, kissing her chest with so much filthy aspiration Nicole just  _ knows  _ she’d yearned to do it for a very long time.

She holds onto her, fingers tangling themselves in honeycomb hair, and she sighs in rapture and relief as she allows Waverly to find her pace.

But it’s hard, you see, giving up the taste of heaven for the sake of pacing, so she tugs, a little impatiently, and her lips find Waverly’s, and there’s filthy slickness and the aftertaste of her own skin, and the endless pit of engulfing wetness threatens to dissolve her into nothing. 

She doesn’t allow herself to pull away as she reaches behind Waverly, movement calculated as she unclasps her bra, and her entire body shivers when her naked chest presses against Waverly’s, because she can feel the warmth of her skin and the softness of who she is and taut nipples press forcefully against her fragility, and she cannot think beyond the wetness of her tongue and the void of her core.

She reaches for her, fingers grasping forcefully against her chest, and she quite likes the desperate little gasp Waverly feeds her when she pinches at her nipples, so she does it again and again, pulling and twisting until Waverly is trembling against her, mouth agape and sighing into her mouth with religious enthrallment.

Waverly always did like it when she was a little daring, so she sticks out her tongue and she traces a path made of cigarette ash from Waverly’s chin to her lips, and Waverly groans against her tongue, sucking it in with disoriented lust. 

Nicole’s skin blooms again and again and again, dahlias and orchids and roses pressing against the warm sun that is Waverly Earp.

She reaches down slowly, nails dragging against softness until she’s grazing her fingers over her waistband, and she dips her index finger in, a promise and a request, pulling and tugging at Waverly’s jeans until the girl gasps again, and she watches with delighted amusement as Waverly sighs, fidgeting with buttons and zippers as if her delay might cause Nicole to reconsider.

(Nicole is sure her entire house could be on fire and she would not be able to stop herself from finally discovering what Waverly Earp tastes like.

She is only human, see).

She breathes out.

“Ya sure?” she asks again as the sound of Waverly’s zipper tickles her ears.

Waverly looks up at her, pupils dilated and mouth agape, lips cherry red and plump and glistening. 

Nicole licks them, just for the hell of it, swallowing the foulness that is their saliva, and Waverly sighs against her.

“I’m sure,” she says, and it is firm and certain and everything that Nicole could ever ask for.

She climbs off of the girl, hands still palming at her stomach and nose dragging itself against the side of her neck to make the distance more bearable, and she senses Waverly’s nervousness despite herself, so she unbuttons her own dirty jeans, pulling them off swiftly.

Waverly breathes, loud and unsteady, chest rising with too much power as she takes in Nicole Haught in nothing but black boyshorts.

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

“It’s alright,” Nicole assures her, laying back on her side and allowing her fingers to drag over Waverly’s chest, lazy circles going round and round taut nipples, and it’s delightful, seeing Waverly melt into a puddle under her touch.

The girl leans forwards, fingers tugging desperately on Nicole’s hair, and she kisses her in search for assurance and guidance and love, and Nicole gives her all of that and so much more.

Waverly shivers.

“You okay, little one?” Nicole asks slowly, lips brushing against Waverly’s.

She sighs, nodding, and Nicole noses at her neck until she allows her enough room to bite onto her pulse point, sucking until she is sure the entire world will be able to see who Waverly belongs to and who Nicole loves.

Sometimes she forgets she’s the oldest of the two, the mature one, the experienced one.

“Can I take these off, baby?” she asks slowly, hands far from Waverly’s unbuttoned jeans, “it’s okay if you want to stop, alright?”

Waverly shakes her head wildly, wide green eyes searching for Nicole.

“I don’t want to stop,” she assures her, hands meeting Nicole’s over her stomach and slowly bringing them down down down until they rest on her waistband, and she tugs lightly.

Permission.

Nicole sits up on her knees, taking in the wonder that is Waverly giving herself to her, and then she slowly drags the fabric down until Waverly’s bare legs grace her with their infinite pliability.

“Ya so pretty, ya know,” Nicole says, tone alien, and she feels the urge to get on her damn knees over dry seeds and pray until she’s worthy of the sight in front of her.

Waverly shivers under her eyes, and Nicole wills her bones to maintain their shape at the sight of a clear damp spot on her underwear.

God will damn her to hell and Nicole will come and get her back.

Nicole settles over her again, right leg between pretty little legs, and she presses down curiously, biting the inside of her cheek at the heat and the wetness which press up against her thigh.

She is dead, she is sure of it.

Waverly bucks up against her, whining a low, keening little sound, and Nicole tightens her grip on her covers in desperation as she wills herself to calm down.

Heat and wetness press up up up, insisting, and she complies, as she always does, pressing against Waverly Earp’s clothed cunt with little restraint.

She leans down, swallowing Waverly’s moans, and she sucks on her tongue as she allows the girl to set her own rhythm.

It’s so deliciously filthy, grinding against her.

Nicole palms her breasts, moving down until she bites on Waverly’s nipples with gentle brutality, and she does not swallow the delicious little sound she elicits, and she is so very glad as it dives into her ears and swims inside her brain.

Waverly is Eos as she whines and trembles and grinds against Nicole, leaving a wet, searing trace over her thigh.

And Nicole knows what she is capable of and she  _ needs  _ to know what Waverly looks like when she comes, so she grinds back down, meeting Waverly in the middle and digging down with force, and she holds on tightly onto her mattress and she holds on tightly to Waverly’s pretty little neck and she sets her own pace, feral and desperate, and Waverly gasps and she keeps up, and Nicole feels sweat gathering on her back as she presses down again and again and again and  _ again  _ until Waverly shouts out her name and holds tightly against her back, nails digging inside her flesh until she’s poking holes in her lungs and filling them with sheer want, entire body trembling as she presses her chest against Nicole and they turn into a single thing, and Nicole holds tightly onto her, whispering her praise to deaf ears as Waverly shivers and gasps for air for what feels like an eternity and what feels like no time at all.

Nicole kisses her throat and the crook of her neck and her cheeks and her lips until she relaxes back against the mattress, breathing deeply, eyes tightly shut and cheeks such a sweet tint of red Nicole thinks of Christmas.

“I’ve got ya, baby,” she whispers against honeycomb hair, slowly removing her thigh from it’s place between her legs, and she looks down, cherishing the scandalous trail of wetness and the string of Waverly’s come which glimmers with the afternoon sun.

When she looks up again, Waverly is still staring down, cheeks terribly red at the sight.

“Fuck,” Nicole groans, voice low and throaty, “that’s hot”.

Waverly swallows, embarrassed, and she avoids Nicole’s gaze.

“I’d never-” she tries “with anyone. Before”.

Nicole, despite her good heart and her anger, feels a swell of pride at being the first person to make Waverly Earp come.

“Ya ain’t got no reason to be embarrassed,” she says, kissing her cheek.

Waverly lets out a whine.

“Ya alright?” Nicole asks her.

Waverly nods eagerly.

“That was-” she starts, and then she lets out a low breath.

Nicole chuckles.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

Waverly giggles.

“I can’t feel my legs”.

Nicole sighs playfully.

“Too early for round two, then, is it?” she asks with a grin.

Waverly slaps her shoulder, blushing terribly.

It is quiet, then, if only for a moment.

Waverly meets Nicole’s gaze.

“If you’re offering,” she trails off, and she’s back to being Nicole’s Waverly again.

Nicole beams.

“Ya sure?” she asks again.

Waverly smiles, and she nods despite the blush which tinges her cheeks.

Nicole sits up with blasphemous eagerness, a wolfish grin a little too predatory as she takes in the little creature laying down on her bed.

She rests the tips of her fingers on the waistband of Waverly’s underwear, and she looks up.

“Is this okay?” he asks slowly, soft smile on her face, and she begs Waverly to know that she will not be upset if it is not.

Waverly smiles, though, and Nicole is pretty sure she’s not as much of a predator as she thinks she is.

Waverly just lets her think of herself as such.

Nicole takes in a deep breath and she counts to three before she tugs down, peeling the underwear away from Waverly’s skin as one might present a god with a sacrifice, and she bites her tongue so hard it draws blood when her eyes meet Waverly’s glistening cunt.

She swallows copper.

Waverly shifts under her stare, thighs daring to hide her away, and Nicole meets her gaze with eyes burning.

“Christ,” she groans, and Waverly visibly relaxes, “ya too damn perfect, ya know that?” she says, because it is true.

Waverly only blinks back at her, licking her lips.

Nicole loves her so very much, you see.

She leans down, hand resting over her hip bone, and she caresses the skin there as she kisses Waverly again and again.

“Baby?” she starts, fingertips grazing against coarse hair, moving down inch by excruciating inch.

Waverly hums, biting Nicole’s lower lip.

Nicole fears her fingers will melt away at the sheer heat as she reaches closer and closer.

She stops, begging for permission, and instead of saying yes, Waverly reaches for Nicole’s hand, tugging until Nicole’s cupping her cunt.

Waverly shares the touch, and she guides Nicole, a puppet master as she traces her fingers back and forth over the dead sea, and Nicole’s jaw is so tight she can feel her teeth digging against her gums, and she is nothing but the velvety wetness of Waverly Earp against her hand.

Waverly shivers beneath her, and she keeps going, up and down and up again, and when she lets go, Nicole settles the pad of her index finger against her clit, and Waverly all but flinches, electricity willing her body to buck up against Nicole’s fingers.

Nicole sets a lazy, deliberate pace, tracing mindless circles around her, and Waverly keens and moans and gasps and dies against her, eyes shut tight and mouth open.

She’s so very pretty.

Nicole reaches down slowly, until she’s pressing just slightly inside her, and there is something to be said about religion at the feeling of being inside Waverly Earp, but she does not care about metaphors when there is none in the world which could compare.

She waits, and Waverly only bucks up against her hand, so she dips her finger inside steadily, moving with painful slowness.

Waverly holds onto her bicep with a deathly grip, and Nicole settles against the crook of her neck, eyes closed as she does not take, but is rather taken by Waverly.

“More,” Waverly gasps, and Nicole could’ve chuckled at her greediness was she less enthralled by the feeling of her warmth.

She obeys, pressing in a second digit, curling up her fingers inside until Waverly looks like she’s about to cry.

And then she removes them without warning.

Waverly’s eyes fly open, and she stares at her in disbelief.

“Why did you stop?” she asks, and Nicole is a little scared for her life.

“I wanna taste ya,” she replies simply.

Waverly stutters, mouth opening and closing.

“What?” she croaks out.

Nicole snorts.

“I wanna taste ya,” she repeats, though she knows Waverly heard her the first time.

Waverly’s face goes impossibly redder.

“Is that okay?” Nicole asks.

Waverly stares.

“You don’t- Isn’t that,” she starts. She breathes in. “You don’t have to, Nicole”.

Nicole furrows her brow.

“That’s why I said I  _ wanna _ ,” she replies, a little too cheeky, and Waverly glares at her.

“Uh,” she lets out, “okay”.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“No one’s done that with ya?” she asks slowly.

Waverly shakes her head.

Nicole tightens her jaw.

“Bunch of fuckin’ idiots,” she mumbles, and then she pulls away, gently nudging Waverly’s thighs until she’s settled on her knees between them.

“Ya okay?” she asks again.

Waverly breathes in.

“Yeah”.

Nicole smiles.

“Relax, yeah?” she says, “I’ll take care of ya, baby”.

That she does.

She leans down, and the heady, tangy scent of Waverly invades her entire mind with violence, and for a second she feels a little dizzy.

She closes her eyes, breathing in, and she can feel Waverly squirm and tremble underneath her.

She holds onto her right thigh, smiling up at the pretty girl who’s blessed her, and she winks.

Waverly melts, gasping and sighing as she throws herself back against the pillows, and Nicole thinks that’s a good enough time.

She sets Waverly’s thigh against her shoulder, relishing the feeling of her leg resting against her back, and then she says a silent prayer before she plants an open mouthed kiss against Waverly Earp’s cunt, hungry and a little frantic, and the first taste of her which hits her tongue turns her blood into hot wax and her bone into sharp knives and her very being into a god, too, because it is holy.

She’d welcome death, now, and she’d shake God’s fucking hand.

She hears Waverly gasp in surprise and she hears her moan as she gets to work.

Nicole presses firmly against Waverly’s clit, and maybe she’s rushing or maybe she just wants to hear her come again, but she sets a quick, certain pace, nails digging in on Waverly’s thighs as the girl trashes and says her name like a prayer, and Nicole cannot be sure if it’s been five minutes or two hours as she runs her tongue up and down over and over and over again until she  _ screams _ , chest heaving as a sob breaks out, and Nicole almost comes herself at the feeling of her thighs trembling against her head.

But she does not stop, and she is sure she won’t ever be able to, and instead she reaches for her, two fingers slowly pressing inside Waverly as the girl moans, and suddenly she makes no sound beyond her heavy breathing as Nicole presses in, twisting against her in time with her tongue as it laps over and over again against her clit.

She cannot breathe as Waverly presses up against her face, and she doesn’t care much about breathing as Waverly comes again, pulling on her hair with admirable strength, and this time her come drips down Nicole’s hand and she can taste her, fresh and ripe and ready, and Nicole really does come this time, shamelessly grinding against her own mattress and gasping against Waverly’s impossibly wet cunt.

And she does not care and she does not stop.

She cannot be sure how many times Waverly’s come against her face when the girl almost stops moving underneath her, sighing heavily and trembling forcefully, and Nicole looks up, and Waverly is staring down at her, eyes wide and mouth agape and Nicole could’ve thought she’d just seen a ghoul or a spirit or a deity.

Nicole stops, this time, slowly grinning as she presses one last kiss to Waverly’s clit, and she smiles against her when Waverly gasps and trembles at the light touch.

She sits back on her knees, chin dripping and tongue numb.

“Howdy,” she smirks, touching an invisible hat.

Waverly just stares.

“Ya doin’ alright, baby?” Nicole asks, climbing up her body, and her reply comes in the shape of a hard kiss, tongue scraping against her own, and she feels Waverly quivering at the taste of herself.

“I think I’m dead,” the girl whispers against Nicole’s filthy mouth.

Nicole’s grin only widens.

“That good, was it?” she asks with a wink.

Waverly huffs, but she has no energy to do anything else.

“Fuck,” she lets out, and Nicole can still feel her thighs trembling.

“Ya okay, yeah?” she asks for reassurance.

Waverly looks up at her, waves crashing wildly against Nicole’s ribs.

“Perfect, see?” she breathes out.

Nicole smiles down at her.

“Perfect,” she repeats.

***

Waverly falls asleep quickly, and Nicole wraps her around three different blankets before walking slowly and quietly to the bathroom.

The lower half of her face shines with redness.

She grins.

***

She falls asleep to the sound of Waverly Earp’s breathing and to the sight of a blue orchid, an offering to Aphrodite, and life is good, sometimes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope this was this filthy enough for ur quarantine needs u bunch of heathens


	32. Chapter 32

20.

It’s dark when Nicole wakes up.

Her room is the ocean floor, and shadows of trees swim around her.

Waverly Earp is awake, cheek resting against her hand as she runs her hand slowly over Nicole’s bare stomach, and she smiles with royal power as Nicole blinks, eyes adjusting to the darkness.

“Hey,” she whispers. 

Her voice is thick and impervious as it travels through murky waters until they reach Nicole’s ears.

“Whatcha doin’ up?” Nicole asks, still only half awake, and her throat complains at the sudden movement.

Waverly shrugs, and Nicole notices she’s still naked, skin exposed to the cool night air, and the blanket draped over her hips is but a meek attempt at decency.

Degas could have painted the fabric over the canvas that is her skin.

Waverly’s shoulders shake, and Nicole realizes she’s laughing at her.

“What?” she groans, hiding her face with a blanket.

Waverly tugs at it until she lets go.

“You looked like you might have a heart attack for a second there,” she teases.

Nicole likes the way she sounds when she knows the extent of her own power.

“I might,” she replies, valiantly willing her eyes to focus on Waverly’s greenery.

Waverly smiles at her.

“How are you this adorable after all  _ that _ ?” she asks, exasperated.

Nicole shrugs.

“Ain’t ya tired?” she asks, fingertips brushing against Waverly’s soft skin as she traces the outline of her jaw. 

Waverly smiles against her.

“Oh, absolutely,” she smirks,

Nicole feels herself blushing, and she hopes the darkness is enough to hide the redness on her cheeks.

“‘n why ain’t ya asleep?”

Waverly shrugs.

“I was,” she closes her eyes as Nicole brushes the pad of her thumb over her lips, “but now I’m not,” she breathes.

And then she sucks in Nicole’s thumb, almost docile as she brushes her tongue over it.

Nicole closes her eyes, and every hair in her body is a hearthstone.

Waverly lets go with a filthy little pop.

“Thought ya was tired,” Nicole hums.

Waverly smiles at her.

It is not sweet.

“I’ve been thinking,” Waverly starts, and the slow drag of her nails against Nicole’s stomach gives her an idea of what she’s been thinking about.

“Oh,” Nicole lets out, barely breathing as Waverly goes lower and lower until the tips of her fingers brush against Nicole’s waistband.

“It’s rude,” Waverly hums, and her fingers drag up again, circling around Nicole’s navel. “Not giving anything back”.

It’s a funny choice of words.

“Ya don’t have to,” Nicole tells her, “I don’t mind”.

It is true, of course.

Waverly smiles wider, all sharp teeth and mischief.

“What if I want to?” she asks, and though it is sly and provocative, it is a search for consent.

Nicole smiles.

“I ain’t gonna mind it, either”.

Nicole is so very sure she is the rabbit and Waverly is the wolf.

“I’m not… used to it,” Waverly clarifies.

Nicole kisses her, and it lasts for too long and is a little too deep.

“Ya real smart,” she assures, hands resting over her cheeks, “ya gonna figure it out real quick”.

Waverly beams at her, and Nicole closes her eyes, forehead pressing against Waverly’s as she feels the softest little hand make it’s way back down, and this time she does not allow the barrier of fabric to stop her descent.

Nicole’s diaphragm refuses to move as Waverly’s hand slowly moves against her underwear, soft fingers dragging over coarse hair, and she closes her eyes when she feels boundless softness drag itself against her.

“Oh,” Waverly gasps out, a nervous little giggle escaping her. 

Nicole opens her eyes, and Waverly’s staring at her.

“What?” she asks, voice dragging itself leisurely against her throat. 

“Uh,” Waverly starts, and Nicole can almost feel the heat radiating from her cheeks, “you’re just… uh”.

Nicole chuckles.

“I’m just what?” she asks slowly. 

It’s so rare, seeing Waverly Earp this embarrassed.

“Uh,” Waverly grunts, “wet,” she lets out lowly, “really wet”.

Nicole smiles at her, and she can have sharp teeth, too.

“That’s your fault,” she tells her, all fang and talon.

Waverly lets out a strangled sound, maybe a gasp and maybe a whine, and she presses her forehead further against Nicole’s. 

Her soft little fingers start moving again, unsure and searching as they drag and circle, and Nicole allows her to, concentrating on her diaphragm. 

Surrendering is a funny thing.

Nicole never quite liked it, really. It was too much taking, too much openness and vulnerability. 

But surrendering to Waverly Earp is inevitable, really, and if she’s being honest with herself, all she’s ever done was surrender to her.

So she allows her thighs to make space for her, settling on her back with her eyes tightly shut as she breathes in deeply.

Then she lets the air out all at once, because Waverly circles around her for the briefest of moments before she’s sliding inside, and there’s so much strange satisfaction in being full of her.

Waverly’s breath hitches.

“Oh”.

Nicole tightens her jaw, and she doesn’t really have it in her to answer.

Waverly pulls back, deliberate and tortuous.

“That ain’t fair,” Nicole groans, almost embarrassed at how her legs spread even further, knee pressing against Wavely’s hip as she sinks against a tidal wave.

Almost.

Waverly doesn’t respond. Instead, she pushes inside agan, two fingers this time, and Nicole tightens her jaw at the delectable burning of being stretched by such a lovely little thing.

She doesn’t care about fairness, either.

Waverly finds her pace, tentatively curling her fingers and pressing in, listening carefully and with rapt attention, and she really always was a quick learner, because she settles on deep, powerful little curls, too slow as she drags her fingers against Nicole, and Nicole has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from pleading her to go faster.

Maintaining one’s reputation is always silly like that.

Waverly sighs, face resting against the crook of Nicole’s neck, and she bites on her shoulder as she slowly quickens her pace, all thrilled rapture as she dives in, and Nicole closes her eyes, gasping as she holds on tightly to her bed sheets.

“Do you like that?” Waverly whispers against her skin, and Nicole  _ knows  _ it wasn’t supposed to sound as filthy as it does, but she cannot help the low groan from dragging it’s way out of her mouth and she almost comes at the soft little whine Waverly lets out in response.

And Waverly always was such a little devil, see, so she pulls out, smiling at the keening sound Nicole makes, and she asks for no permission before she’s tugging Nicole’s underwear off her hips and throwing it behind her.

Her eyes focus, and through the darkness and the swordfish and the plankton, Nicole can see her shark smile glimmer. 

She’s no longer blushing.

“Like whatcha seein’?” Nicole teases, raising her hips just the slightest.

Instead of replying, Waverly settles over her, cunt wet and hot pressing down over Nicole’s thigh, and she’s barely even balanced herself when she presses inside Nicole again, two fingers already twisting with expert knowledge, and Nicole feels her lungs burn at the sight of the girl above her as she starts to grind  _ down.  _

Waverly looks at her, an inferno of sea storms, mouth agape and brow furrowed in delightful concentration as she glides her hips back and forth, and Nicole barely even feels herself moving as she reaches for her, almost crying in relief when Waverly raises herself up just the slightest, inviting her in, and then she’s sinking down again, no preparation needed before three of Nicole’s fingers nestle in impossible tightness.

Maybe it’s just for the hell of it and maybe it is payback, but Waverly’s thumb finds her clit and Nicole really doesn’t feel like thinking about much of anything as she is taken in two so very different ways.

It’s nothing short of a miracle and a blessing when Waverly comes before her, sudden and unexpected as she tightens around her fingers, gasping for breath as she grinds down over and over again.

Nicole comes to the sight of the prettiest little thing she ever did see trembling above her, eyes tightly shut and muscles shuddering, and she cannot help but cry out when Waverly presses inside her with too much knowledge, curling up even as her legs tremble.

Surrendering is certainly a funny thing.

***

“Was that alright?” Waverly asks her, hair matted in sweat and eyes closed as she breathes in the smell of Nicole’s skin.

Nicole snorts.

“Ya jokin’?”

Waverly huffs. 

“I’m just being sure,” she whines, though she does not open her eyes and her fingers do not stop the soothing circles they trace over Nicole’s stomach.

Nicole presses a kiss against her forehead.

“I’m very glad I’m alive right now, Miss Waverly,” she says against her hair.

Waverly sighs, content, and she rubs her sweet little cheek against Nicole’s chest.

“Me too”.

***

Nicole has never been happier about Nedley’s 48 hour shifts.

***

She watches Waverly Earp make them coffee, already familiar with their coffee machine as she hums a mindless song to herself, and she feels she might be turning a little green with the sheer happiness of cooking them scrambled eggs as her knees still threaten to give out underneath her.

When she picks Waverly Earp by the waist and sits her down on the counter, Waverly only lets out a surprised little gasp, melting against her touch.

When she sucks in Waverly Earp’s tongue before sinking to her knees and pulling off her underwear, Waverly makes no sound at all.

When Waverly Earp comes against her tongue, coffee going cold beside them, she lets out a moan so sweet Nicole can feel the roof of her mouth tingling.

21.

On Nicole’s 21st birthday, Waverly Earp shows up at her house at six in the morning, beaming, and she holds a sourdough bread. She’d made it with the starter she’d been feeding for two months, she tells Nicole. 

She wanted to make sure it was a good one.

Together, they mix olive oil and kosher salt and rosemary and black pepper, and they eat the entire loaf with their hands.

There’s something ancient and eternal about it, really, about the ritual of ripping off chunk after chunk of still-warm bread made by a being of love, and knowing there have been so many couples who have done the same before.

Waverly talks and talks and talks about her classes and her professors and the new textbook she bought yesterday, and there’s so much love in nurture and in growth and in yeast and in her.

***

It’s Nicole’s favorite birthday, because Waverly always did have a talent for making her feel like the day was worth a celebration.

***

“Who the fuck even cares about how tall their grass is?” Wynonna grumbles, sat on a lawn chair as Nicole finishes up one of her last yards before it’s too cold to work.

“Everyone but ya,” Nicole tells her.

Wynonna doesn’t dignify her with an answer.

Nicole wipes her forehead before moving to sit beside her.

“Ya remember what I said ‘bout Nedley wantin’ to find my mother?”

Wynonna nods, absentmindedly playing with Nicole’s shears as if they are not capable of cutting off one of her fingers.

“He got ‘er address, I think,” Nicole hums, toeing at the cut grass. 

“Oh,” Wynonna puts down the shears, “so you’re going, then?” she asks slowly.

Nicole only shrugs.

“I guess”.

Wynonna purses her lips, staring down at the ground. 

“You don’t have to, you know,” she tells her finally.

Nicole sighs.

“I kinda do, I think”.

Wynonna smacks the back of her head.

“Stop being an idiot,” she chastises, “you don’t have to do anything”.

Nicole looks up with a frown, hand moving to protect her head.

“Watcha do that for?” she groans.

“Because you’re being an idiot,” Wynonna repeats, voice affected.

Nicole narrows her eyes.

“Dude,” she starts, “you can just tell him you don’t want to go. He’s not a dick, he’ll get it”.

Nicole is pretty sure that is a very good compliment, coming from her.

“I want to, though,” she sighs, “I’m just… scared, I guess”.

Surprisingly, Wynonna only nods, hand moving to rest on her shoulder with a reassuring grip. 

It keeps her from floating away.

“You’re not going back,” she says simply. “You don’t belong there”.

***

Nicole had never thought she’d belong somewhere.

But life always proves us wrong, so she belongs to a small ghost town and to the spot on the couch by Nedley’s couch and to the Homestead’s living room floor.

And she belongs to her garden, of course, and she belongs to Waverly Earp, because the girl is a person and a place and something else entirely, untouchable and omnipresent.

***

“Sir?”

Nedley looks up from his book.

(Nicole is pretty positive he is reading Harry Potter, but she doesn’t comment).

“Yeah?”

She sits down, shoulders heavy and feet made of lead.

“Ya got it?” she asks, “the address, I mean”.

He takes off his glasses.

“Yeah”.

Nicole follows the patterns of the rug with her eyes.

“When are we goin’?” she asks him, voice low and a little shaky.

“Whenever you want,” he replies, and she knows he means it.

She moves to get up, but he places his hand on her knee.

“Chicken,” he starts, voice too heavy as it drags itself down to the floor.

She feels the immediate urge to run at the tone.

“Yeah?”

He breaths in, mouth twisted in discomfort, and she watches his mustache move with almost deranged attention.

“I found somethin’ else, too,” he says, “‘bout ya folks”.

It’s strange, but she feels like her blood is water, running too fast inside her veins. 

“What is it?” 

The thing about not knowing is that it’s comfortable and serene like sea water, but Nicole’s ocean never did have too many coral reefs.

The waves always got to her, and they did not hold back.

“Ya dad’s…” he shifts under her gaze, “he’s dead. Died two years ago”.

She blinks.

She counts how many times, too, and she’s reached her eleventh when she finally manages to rip off her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

She tastes copper, and she swallows it down.

“Overdose?” she asks him, because she knows the answer.

He nods, of course.

She snorts.

“He lasted longer than what I thought he would,” she says, ugly and dry.

The words grow into an  Erythroxylum Suberosum and the twisted branches dig into her skin.

“He was your dad,” Nedley tells her carefully.

It’s not very easy to believe you can turn into something green when you come from something so rotten.

“Ya my dad, not him”.

In a way, she doesn’t mean it, but it is easy to pretend she does.

***

The fact that the man who’s always haunted her is no longer alive doesn’t make it easier to pull air inside her lungs.

If anything, the concretization of his ghost serves as another layer of bones against them, tightening until she can only breathe in shallow little breaths.

She doesn’t sleep, that night, because his body presses against her back and his awfully cold breath turns the back of her neck into a graveyard. She sees velvet red for hours which feel like years, his most lasting memory her nails digging against the flesh of her palms, and she hates him more than she ever did before, because he  _ won _ .

***

She avoids Waverly Earp for two days, and on the third the girl appears at her doorstep with her tiny little arms crossed across her chest, and she looks too angry for Nicole to register how cute she is with a jacket twice the size of her body.

“Uh,” she blinks, the cold air prickling her skin, and she gestures for her to come in, “hey”.

Waverly huffs.

“Don’t  _ hey  _ me!” she warns, walking inside with boots slamming against wood. “You’re ignoring my texts!”

Nicole closes her front door, hairs on her arms standing on end, and she turns around, picking at her flannel pants. 

“Sorry,” she lets out, looking up, and she really is.

She just didn’t think red and sharp nails had anything to do with honeycomb and tomatoes.

Waverly raises an eyebrow, and Nicole knows it is a very silent and very deadly warning.

“Uh,” she tries, throat a little too dry, “I just… got some news”.

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“So you make me think you’re dead for two whole days?” she asks, and Nicole is aware she’s on a very tight rope.

“Can we talk?” she pleads, “it’s just… complicated”.

Waverly staggers, then, confidence faltering, and she takes a deep breath before walking up the stairs.

***

“Are you breaking up with me?” she asks, voice too high and too fragile. 

Nicole almost closes her bedroom door against her own fingers.

“What?” she asks, a little too loud, “why would I do that?”

She turns around a little too quickly. Waverly stands in the middle of her room, and she looks awful small.

“You said we needed to talk!” the girl replies, eyes wide.

“Do ya want to break up with me?” Nicole asks back, heart racing.

“You’re the one who’s saying it!”

“I’m not sayin’ nothin’!”

“You ignored me and then u said we need to talk!”

“My father’s dead, Waverly!”

She yells that last part, and she appreciates she was too distracted to process the words coming out of her mouth.

Waverly collapses against herself, sinking back down onto the floor with a lost expression on her pretty face.

“Oh”.

Nicole falls back against her door, back pressing onto hard wood.

It’s nice, being kept upright by something stronger than ourselves.

“Yeah,” she hums, and even through the crashing of waves, she can hear Waverly sing her siren songs to her, and she knows the velvet red is not going to last. “Overdose,” she adds.

An afterthought.

“Oh,” Waverly repeats.

She moves, then, determined, strong arms wrapping themselves around Nicole’s waist, and Nicole lets her body sag forward, dissolving against her embrace.

It’s nice, being kept upright by something stronger than ourselves.

“Is it bad that I’m glad you aren’t breaking up with me?” Waverly asks after a moment, voice uncomfortably high as she lets out a strange little giggle.

Nicole snorts.

“‘spose not”.

Family was never about blood, anyways.

“I’m not sorry,” Waverly says, voice muffled against Nicole’s skin, “so I’m not going to say that”.

Nicole reaches for her, tilting her chin up, and she allows herself to dive into green if only for a moment of relief.

“No,” she agrees, “I don’t think I am, either”.

Waverly moves towards her bed, pulling her along, and she settles against the headboard. Nicole lays down, head resting on her lap, and she closes her eyes at the feeling of soft little fingers getting lost in red.

“How are you feeling?” the girl asks with tenderness.

Nicole knows, somehow, that she will not be judged by the ugliness in her lungs.

“I’m angry,” she breathes out, “it ain’t fair”.

Waverly says nothing, fingers caressing her scalp. 

“He never - I didn’t even get to… to tell him,” she sighs, and she feels her eyes sting with the promise of rain, and she hates herself for being so very weak. “I shoulda looked him in the eye ‘n told him he almost ruined me ‘n that I hate him ‘n that he-”

She sobs.

Waverly coos, pulling her up until she can wrap her arms around her, lips pressing against the top of Nicole’s head, and her arms are so very strong and so very warm.

“Hey, baby,” she whispers, “it’s okay. It’s okay”.

Nicole sobs, entire body crashing against Waverly Earp, and the coral reef does not move an inch.

She wonders when her life had turned into salt water.

The sun is high up when she finally relaxes, and Waverly keeps going, whispering to her that she will be alright and kissing her hair with gentleness as pure as a desert made of salt.

“Sorry”.

Waverly huffs.

“Nothing to be sorry about”.

Nicole just melts further into her.

“I don’t even - I shouldn’t  _ care _ ”.

“He’s your father, Nicole,” Waverly tells her patiently, “was”.

Nicole huffs, sitting up and staring back at her with unexplainable defiance.

“He ain’t a father,” she says, “Nedley’s my damn father”.

Maybe gods really do know things we cannot comprehend, because Waverly only smiles.

“Nedley isn’t your father, my love,” she says, and the endearment is the warning, and it comes only after the blow.

“He-”

“Nicole,” Waverly cuts her off, gentle and calm, “he isn’t. You never  _ ever  _ said he was, before”.

Nicole feels her teeth dig against her gums.

“Don’t do that to yourself”.

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” she bites back, embarrassed by her own childishness.

Waverly only shakes her head.

“You’re  _ pretending  _ you don’t care”.

Nicole crosses her arms against her chest, petulant and wrong.

“I ain’t sayin’ I don’t care!” she lies to herself and to Waverly Earp, “I’m sayin’ I hate him! I’m sayin’ I hate him ‘n I didn’t even get the god damned chance to tell him that!”

Waverly breathes in slowly.

“Okay,” she lets out.

Nicole swallows, looking down at her own knees.

“I wanted him to change,” she tells the walls, and Waverly listens, “I don’t want to be his daughter”.

Waverly blows out a breath.

“I know,” she whispers. “But you are”.

Nicole gets up, and she reaches inside her jacket pocket in search for tobacco.

“You’re not him, you know,” Waverly breathes out. “You’re just his daughter”.

Nicole laughs, bitter and dry.

“I know I’m not him,” she says, “but a garden’s as good as it’s gardener, ain’t it?”

Waverly huffs.

“Stop it”.

Nicole walks back to her bed, and she focuses too much in her own fingers as they roll up a cigarette.

“Do you want to be alone?” Waverly asks, and there’s no spite in her voice.

Nicole’s eyes shoot up, desperate.

“No!” she pleads. “I just - I don’t wanna talk about it, not now”.

Waverly smiles.

“We won’t, then”.

***

When Waverly leaves, Nicole drags herself to her bed.

She lays down, and all she can think about is how bitter a fruit is when you do not water it enough.

Despite the weight of a ghost, she sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you.


	33. Chapter 33

21.

“We’re throwing you a party,” Wynonna tells Nicole, arms full of grocery bags as she stands on her front porch. 

Waverly pokes her little head from behind her.

“It’s not a  _ party!”  _ she whines, arms full of wine bottles.

Nicole just stares at them for a second, bare feet against the cold living room floor and hands still dirty from work.

“This looks a lil like a party,” she tells them, moving back and inviting them in.

Wynonna greets her with a swift kick to the shin, and Waverly stands on the tips of her toes, kissing her before they walk over to her kitchen.

“It’s a your-dad’s-dead party, Bigfoot,” Wynonna informs her.

Waverly smacks the back of her head.

“It isn’t a party!” she repeats.

Nicole snorts.

“It’s alright, baby,” she tells her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before helping her put down the bottles.

Wynonna dry heaves.

“Please stop being disgusting”.

Waverly huffs, rolling her eyes.

“I just wanted to distract you,” she tells Nicole, “you’ve been… quiet”.

Nicole smiles down at her. 

“Thank you”.

***

It’s strange, having someone know what you need when you don’t know it yourself.

***

“To dead dads,” Wynonna says before raising her glass.

“God, will you  _ please  _ shut up?” Waverly retorts, glaring at her.

Nicole chuckles, and so does Dolls from beside her.

Sometimes she thinks their only purpose on Earth is to watch the Earps bickering.

“To dead dads,” she says, raising her glass and clinking it against Wynonna’s.

Waverly huffs, rolling her eyes, and it is very inappropriate, they know, but it feels  _ fair,  _ toasting to her relief, so she cannot bring herself to care.

***

When Doc and Rosita arrive, they say nothing, and Nicole is eternally glad that no one’s said they were sorry.

She doesn’t think that would be true.

***

Nicole rests her shoulder against the doorway of her kitchen, and she watches as Waverly Earp rinses the empty wine bottles so she can put them in the recycling bin she’d almost forced Nicole to get.

“Thank ya,” she tells the entire room, and the words flutter around before they reach their destination.

Waverly looks over her shoulder with a smile.

“It’s nothing,” she shrugs.

Except it’s everything, of course.

“Ya always know,” Nicole says, walking up to her girlfriend and resting her chin on the top of her head, arms wrapping themselves around her waist instinctively. 

She feels Waverly sink just a little against her, and it’s lovely.

“Know what?” she asks lowly, and her ribcage hums as it meets Nicole’s.

Nicole kisses the top of her head.

“What I need”.

Waverly doesn’t say anything, but the way her body rests just a little more against Nicole’s frame tells her all she needs to know.

***

It’s cold, now, cold enough that Nicole has to bring Waverly three blankets when she suggests they sit out on the porch for a while. There’s no one else home, and the silence rings on her ears with painful insistence.

Her toes still tingle and her skin is still too hot, but she no longer feels the wine cursing through her veins as she descends the steps of the front porch, lighting a cigarette.

Waverly sits on Nedley’s old rocking chair, nestled in her pile of blankets, and Nicole feels strange.

She feels at home.

“Ya ain’t got classes near Christmas, right?”

Waverly looks up from her phone, eyeing the smoke leaving Nicole’s mouth with just a hint of irritation. 

“I don’t,” she replies.

Her cheeks still glow with the faintest of reds, and Nicole wonders if she’d drank more than what she thought.

“I’m thinking ‘bout goin’, then,” she says, smoke mixing with condensation. 

“To see your mother?” Waverly asks, though she knows the answer.

Nicole hums.

“I’ll go with you,” Waverly tells her.

Nicole puts out her unfinished cigarette against the bottom of her shoes, bringing it up to rest over her ear.

“Ya ain’t have to, baby,” she tells Waverly and she feels a little warmer at the way Waverly’s cheeks burn brighter at the pet name.

“I know,” she shrugs, “but I want to”.

Nicole sighs, smiling as she reaches her hand out to the girl, helping her hold onto the blankets as she gets up.

“What did I do to deserve ya, lil lady?” she asks, pressing a kiss to Waverly’s cheek as they walk inside.

Waverly just smiles at her.

***

When they walk up to Nicole’s room, Nicole has no intentions, and she lays down the pile of blankets.

Waverly watches her, eyes searing her skin like hot iron.

“What?” Nicole asks, sitting down on her bed and moving to remove her shoes.

“Nothing,” Waverly shrugs, “you just… look lighter”.

Nicole snorts.

“Lighter?” 

Waverly walks up to her, soft hands moving against red hair with familiarity.

“Yeah,” she replies simply, “lighter”.

Nicole pulls her soft little hands down, pressing a kiss against each palm.

“It’s ya fault, I think,” she tells her.

Waverly hums.

“Take that off,” she says suddenly, pulling on Nicole’s sweater.

She really, really should be getting used to it by now. 

She still chokes on her own spit.

“What?”

Waverly snorts.

“Take that off and lie down on your stomach,” she instructs.

Nicole knows better than to question it, so she pulls it off and over her head, folding it neatly even as Waverly huffs.

“Ya too impatient,” Nicole tells her with a grin.

She just rolls her eyes, poking Nicole’s shoulder until she’s laying down.

“It’s almost winter,” the girl points out, and Nicole feels the bed dip as she climbs in.

It pulls them closer, telling them to touch, and Waverly complies, settling on her knees and straddling Nicole’s lower back.

Nicole feels herself sink against the soft mattress, and Waverly sinks further against her.

She’s never seen the ocean, but she imagines it looks like this feels.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asks, trying to crane her neck up.

Waverly clicks her tongue.

“Do you ever relax?” she asks, though her voice speaks of love and tenderness. “It’s almost winter,” she repeats.

“Uh,” Nicole hums, “okay?”

Waverly huffs, and then Nicole feels the softest little hands pressing down on her shoulder blades with a tender kind of strength, thumbs drawing tight little circles over her overworked muscles.

She grunts.

“Winter’s the only time you give yourself a break,” Waverly comments, fingers digging into her back with a perfect mixture of care and roughness, and Nicole closes her eyes and allows herself to just  _ be  _ for a moment. “I like it”.

Nicole grunts again, disapproving.

“I hate not doin’ nothin’,” she whines.

Waverly giggles.

“I know, sweetheart,” Waverly whispers, “but you need rest”.

Nicole doesn’t feel like arguing with her when she feels like this is most probably the greatest moment of her life, so she just sighs, reveling on the feeling of absurdly soft hands pressing into her eternally sore muscles, and just like every other part of her, they obey Waverly Earp, relaxing and letting go.

***

“I love you,” Nicole tells Waverly after minutes or hours of comfortable, sweet and silky silence, disappearing against the feeling of her fingers tracing complex maps on her back.

“I know,” Waverly answers, and her hands do not stop moving. “And I love you”.

***

When the soft fingers get stronger and more daring, Nicole only allows herself to turn into lava, and she shivers at the feeling of Waverly’s lips pressing against the back of her neck.

She sighs, and Waverly takes it as encouragement, biting lightly at her shoulder, and Nicole can’t help the way her hips press against the mattress when Waverly licks a path from her shoulder to her earlobe.

She’s really too good a student.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asks lowly, eyes closed.

“Nothing,” Waverly replies, voice too innocent for someone who’s undoing the clasps of Nicole’s bra.

Nicole bites at her pillows as the girl traces a devious path against her spine, all spit and teeth.

Nicole grunts, turning them over until she’s straddling Waverly. 

“Ya had ya fun,” she says, pulling on Waverly’s shirt until she raises her arms above her head, a silent permission. “It’s my turn, now”.

Waverly has the audacity to pout as she moves to remove her own bra.

“It’s always  _ your  _ turn,” Waverly whines, and Nicole only half listens to her complaining as she stares down at her bare chest, hands moving instinctively to pull on her nipples, and she melts at the little gasp Waverly lets out.

“Ya complainin’?” she asks her, leaning down over her until her hair brushes against naked skin.

Waverly is about to say something, Nicole thinks, but she shuts up at the sight of Nicole allowing a sinful trail of spit to fall over her breast, coating her already hard nipples in saliva.

“Ya was gonna say somethin’?” she asks.

Waverly tightens her jaw, shaking her head feverishly. 

Nicole grins.

*** 

Nicole sips on a cup of coffee, burning her tongue and relishing the feeling, and she watches the first snowfall from the kitchen window.

She feels his presence, and she hears his heavy steps.

“Mornin’,” Nedley grunts. 

Nicole looks back, smiling at the sight of his half-closed eyes and messy mustache. 

“Mornin’, old man,” she snickers, “it’s snowin’”.

He only grunts at her, moving to pour himself a cup of coffee.

She’s a little amazed by how much he’s able to accomplish while being still half asleep.

“I been thinkin’,” she starts tentatively, hands holding onto the hot cup a little tighter. 

“Ya?” he asks, sitting down heavily on his chair and clutching onto his own mug.

Nicole sets her coffee down, walking up to the stove and bringing him a frying pan with scrambled eggs. 

“When’s ya next day off?”

He thanks her, watching with tired eyes as she sits down beside him.

“Next week,” he tells her, “got a couple days off. Why?”

She shrugs.

“Been thinkin’,” she repeats, “‘bout my mom”.

He looks up from his breakfast, clearly surprised. 

“Oh”.

“We should go,” she says slowly. 

She worries the suddenness of her words might scare herself.

“Maybe she’s… better. Without ‘im, I mean”.

Nedley sighs.

“Kid-”

“I know,” she cuts him off, “I know. I’m just… wonderin’”.

He nods slowly.

“Just… try not to get ya hopes up, yeah?”

“I know,” she repeats. 

He hums, sipping on his coffee quietly.

“Friday, yeah?” he says after a moment. “We drivin’ up there. Tell ya wife”.

She rolls her eyes.

“We ain’t married, sir”.

“Yet”.

She smiles.

“Yet”.

When she’s walking out of the kitchen, second cup of coffee in her hands, Nedley clears his throat.

“I’m proud of ya,” he says, and he’s no longer half asleep.

She turns around, and she allows herself to smile at him.

“I’m proud of us both, sir”.

***

The night before they’re supposed to leave, Nicole lies in bed, and she feels her skin burn with guilt.

For the first time in her life, she thinks of leaving her parents not as leaving, but as abandoning, and she curses herself for damning her mother to a future she could not wish upon herself.

She wonders, and that she has done countless times, if she could’ve convinced her to leave, too. If she could’ve knocked on Randy Nedley’s door with his sister by her side, if she could’ve been raised by someone who was more than a woman painted silver and standing perfectly still.

(she knows she did what she could, and she knows her mother would not have left, but guilt is the crawling of our skin when we step into a church and we know we are not welcomed, and it is the insistent burn of cayenne pepper on our tongue, uncomfortable and endless).

But since God sometimes is merciful, and she has done her fair share of giving, she calls Waverly Earp, and the girl answers.

“Hey, baby,” she says, and Nicole is sure she was expecting the call.

“Did I wake ya up?”

Nicole  _ feels  _ Waverly’s smile.

“I was hoping you’d call”.

Nicole looks up at the ceiling, and she wishes she was in Waverly’s room, watching the shadow of all they’d created together dance around them.

“Nervous?”

Nicole snorts.

“Somethin’ like that”.

“If it makes you feel better,” Waverly starts, “I made us a four hour road trip playlist”.

Nicole is always so shocked, see, of the amount of impossible things that had to happen for her to able to kiss the lips of someone like Waverly Earp.

“I ain’t sure Nedley’s gonna like listenin’ to Dua Lipa for four hours,” she comments lightly, pretending she isn’t also not looking forward to listening to Dua Lipa for four hours.

“She’s the Monet of contemporary pop music, Nicole,” Waverly tells her with all the seriousness in the world.

Nicole laughs.

“I’m serious!”

“I know ya are!” Nicole chuckles, “that kinda makes it worse”.

Waverly huffs, and Nicole knows she’s rolling her eyes.

Their silence is holy, always had been. It glows in the dark and it casts hundreds of eyes upon them.

“Whatever happens,” Waverly speaks slowly, clearly. Certain. “It’s not your fault”.

Nicole hums.

“I know,” she lies, “I just… not knowin’ is good, sometimes, ain’t it?”

Waverly says nothing.

“Ya don’t have to come with us,” she says, and it is very selfish, because she knows she’s scared of what will be waiting for them, and she knows she doesn’t want to smudge the painting Waverly’s created of her.

She was always scared of that. 

Of Waverly discovering she was made from clay and not from marble.

“I want to, Nicole,” Waverly says, and it’s tender and it is stern. 

Nicole sighs. 

“Okay”.

“You’re going to be fine,” Waverly assures her, “you’re not alone anymore”.

Nicole knows that, of course. She knows it like you’d know the sharp pain of being burned, she smells the burning flesh and she feels the endless sting and it is terrifying and it is delightful.

“Ya ain’t, either,” she tells Waverly, just because.

She hears the soft little breath the girl lets out, and she smiles.

“We were really stupid, uh?” Waverly tells her, voice warm milk. “We could’ve been together for like, five years”.

Nicole laughs, too.

“All kids are stupid, I think”.

A hundred eyes watch over them, and Nicole feels lighter.

“Ya should go to sleep”.

“You too, cowboy”.

Nicole waits until she’s sure Waverly’s asleep before hanging up.

***

“Ya sure ya don’t want me to drive?”

Nedley stares back at her, eyes only half open, and he only grunts.

“Alright,” Nicole sighs, sinking back against the passenger seat and holding onto her thermos tightly. “We gotta pick Waverly up,” she reminds him as turns the ignition.

Nedley only grunts again, and she’s a little scared about the next four hours.

“I told ya not to stay up watchin’ that damn movie,” she chastises him.

He grunts, naturally, and they both pretend they weren’t up all night fearing the future and blaming themselves for the past.

***

“Good morning,” Waverly greets cheerfully, pecking Nicole on the cheek and smiling at Nedley.

Nicole feels a little less tired when she smells her perfume and feels her skin.

“Mornin’,” she drawls, “don’t mind Nedley here, he’s still asleep”.

Waverly only giggles, and it’s light and easy and river water, and Nicole notices Nedley relaxing just the slightest against his seat.

***

As they drive away from home, Waverly’s bizarrely adequate mixture of country and pop music making the journey a little less awful, Nicole thinks about how family is really just about relaxing your muscles and allowing your shoulders to deflate.

***

“How’s college, kid?” Nedley asks Waverly when his eyes are finally open, fingers tapping against the steering wheel a little too enthusiastically as Doja Cat talks about cyber sex.

“It’s great!” Waverly says, so much enthusiasm and joy in her tone Nicole feels her lungs press against her ribs until they crack. 

And she starts talking about this one female professor who just knows so much about greek philosophy and the electives she’s already taking and how she can’t wait for this one lecture about ancient Greece and how cool it is that Rosita’s there with her and Nicole just listens to it all, a devotee listening to their Sunday Mass, and she’s always so bewildered by how  _ easy  _ Waverly is, by how her world is made of good and bad and of top hats and bunnies, and she knows Nedley feels it, too, the softness and the abatement of her company.

She’s glad Waverly wanted to come with them.

***

When they stop for coffee, Nedley waits until Waverly excuses herself to the bathroom, and then he rests his heavy hand on Nicole’s shoulder.

“Ain’t ya glad ya wife came along?” he asks her with a rare smile.

She snorts.

“I’m thinkin’ ya are, too”.

He nods, winking.

“I’m glad ya with ‘er,” he says after a moment, “she’s good for ya”.

Nicole shrugs off his hand with a snort, calling him a sentimental old man.

She knows he understands it as an _ I love you _ .

***

Nicole doesn’t recognize the town as they drive around, and she isn’t sure it’s the same one she’d left almost a decade ago.

She doesn’t ask what’s it’s name.

Waverly looks around, wide and curious eyes taking in every single building, and Nicole’s suddenly reminded that this is probably one of the only times she’s left Purgatory.

“Wish ya could have a trip in less… awful circumstances,” she says, looking back over her seat at the pretty green eyes which search for everything and for nothing in particular.

Waverly shrugs, smiling back at her.

“We have time”.

Nicole feels her skin prickle, and though she doesn’t know where she is nor where they’re going, every road and every turn and every building bring her a little more discomfort, every bone in her body sharpened into blades and poking at her flesh from the inside.

She doesn’t think she was ever this scared.

Waverly rests her hand on her shoulder, and she says nothing, soft fingers lightly squeezing.

Nicole tries her hardest to force air inside her lungs, and she tries not to cringe at the feeling of twenty four sharp blades pressing against them.

Suddenly, Nedley pulls into a parking lot. 

An old building looms over them, all worn out shades of beige and dirty windows.

Nicole tries desperately to look for clues, for any indication that her mother’s clean and well and healthy, but the strange man sat on the sidewalk and the emptiness of the parking lot tell her tales she does not want to hear.

Nedley parks the car.

“Address they gave me is here,” he mutters, and his voice is shrill and it echoes.

It empties out Nicole’s lungs, and she feels ever hair in her body dig into her skin.

Nedley unbuckles his seatbelt. 

“Ready, chicken?” he asks her, fighting against his own nerves as he rests a hand so light it is smoke on Nicole’s thigh.

She tightens her jaw.

“Ain’t ever gonna be”.

Nedley lets out something between a snort and a groan, and he climbs out of the car.

Waverly follows, quiet, a watcher and a warm blanket over them both, and Nicole takes in three deep breaths before leaving the car.

She reaches for her girlfriend’s hand, and she realizes with consternation that it’s too cold and too sweaty.

She’d always though Waverly was above nervousness.

They do not speak, and each step echoes around the near empty parking lot like a promise and a dare.

When they enter the building, Nedley tells them to wait by the door as he talks to the doorman.

Nicole feels like she’s only watching herself standing there, foot tapping against old concrete and hand holding on a little too tightly to Waverly’s.

A lifetime goes by, and Waverly says nothing, resting her head against Nicole’s shoulder and kissing her skin with sacred softness.

Nedley appears on the doorway, gesturing for them to come in.

He doesn’t say a word, and Nicole isn’t sure if he’s using his badge to find her mother, but she truly doesn’t care. 

She wants to be anywhere else and she wants to be anyone else.

Nicole feels bile rise to the back of her throat as they walk up an endless staircase.

Her feet move on their own, step after tortus step, until they stop in front of an old door.

There’s no welcome mat.

“It’s here,” Nedley says. “Waverly, can ya…”

Waverly nods vigorously, as if this has been planned beforehand, and she tugs on Nicole’s hand, pulling her away from the door.

Nicole doesn’t have it in her to question it, and she follows her towards the end of the hall.

Nedley knocks on the door, and the dull, lifeless sound fills Nicole with dread.

“He wants to see her, first,” Waverly explains, though Nicole has not asked. She rests her elbows on a large and dusty window frame, looking out at the dirty parking lot. 

Nicole imitates her, just because.

Waverly stares at her, concern turning Nicole’s skin into ice.

“Breathe, baby”.

Nicole stares back at her.

“I’m tryin’”.

Waverly places her hand on the small of her back, and it soothes, but it also stings. 

A door opens, but Nicole does not look over her shoulder.

She hears Nedley’s voice, but she knows not what he’s saying, and her heart beats with too much strength, ramming against her ribcage with the sole intent of cracking it wide open.

She stares at the strange man sat on the sidewalk.

Nedley’s voice gets a little louder, a little more urgent, and her bones are so sharp she’s afraid moving will rip her skin apart.

Waverly looks over at him, but says nothing.

Nicole stares at the strange man sat on the sidewalk.

Then she hears the first voice she’d ever recognized, and that’s the sharpness that finally dissects her.

The first voice she’d ever recognized calls out to her, saying the name it’d chosen twenty one years ago, and Nicole had never realized just how much she missed the comfort of motherhood and the ease it could bring to her sore muscles.

Nicole stares at the strange woman standing next to Randy Nedley, and her eyes burn.

Waverly holds onto her, certain and  _ there,  _ as Nicole takes in the white hair and the hollow eyes and the unnaturally sharp jaw of the woman she’d left behind.

The woman is crying.

Nicole realizes she is, too.

She tries to say something, but the word  _ mom  _ feels so foreign it gets lost inside her throat. 

And maybe it is guilt, or maybe it is relief that at least she’s still  _ alive,  _ and maybe she missed her more than she’d ever admit, but her feet move on their own, dragging her forward until she’s hugging the woman who’s all sharp angles and visible bones, and she holds her tight, even if she’s scared she might crush her.

The woman smells strange, stale smoke and sweat, but there’s a hint of lavender there, and Nicole reacts to it how she’d reacted ten years ago. She smiles.

It always meant her mother was having a good day.

“Look at you,” the woman lets out, voice cracking as she holds Nicole at arms length, wide eyes taking her in with hunger. “God, you’re so big”.

Nicole just stares at her. 

Nedley is crying, and she’d laugh at him if she wasn’t crying, too.

A cold, frail hand rests over her cheek, and her mother smiles a crooked smile before looking over at Nedley.

“Thank you,” she tells him.

Would you look at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unfortunately for absolutely everyone in the planet, he lives!


	34. Chapter 34

21.

Echidna stands in the middle of a small, barely furnitured apartment. She stares at Nicole, a mixture of awe and guilt and something Nicole has never seen before.

The carpet smells of stale cigarette smoke, and Nicole shivers. It feels colder inside, somehow. 

She wishes Nedley hadn’t dragged Waverly with him with a lame excuse about cake.

She feels desperately alone inside Echidna’s cold cavern.

“Would you like some tea?” her mother asks her, voice raspy and shaky.

“I ain’t- I don’t like tea,” Nicole shakes her head.

Her palms sweat, and she wipes them profusely against her jeans.

Her mother smiles a strange, sorrowful smile.

“Coffee?”

Nicole breathes in.

“Ya ain’t gotta offer me nothin’,” she breathes out, tired, and her knees hold her up by sheer will.

Her mother clicks her forked tongue, but there is no poison. 

“Your father never liked it, either,” she says, thin legs slowly carrying her to what could be mercifully called her kitchen, and Nicole doesn’t move as she watches her turn her back, pressing a few buttons on a coffee maker, “tea, I mean. Only drank coffee”.

The piece of information makes her feel like she’s already had her coffee, and it was unsweetened.

“He’s dead,” Nicole says, and it sounds like a question.

Her mother lets go of a mug, and it clunks loudly against the counter. 

“Sorry,” Nicole sighs, “I just… Nedley told me”.

The frail woman doesn’t turn around, shaky hands laying out two mugs with too much care.

“He is”.

Nicole’s stomach feels like a large, unyielding void inside her.

“Were you still… with him?”

Her mother turns around, and she doesn’t look much like a viper anymore.

“No,” she says simply, “I left. Few years ago”.

Selfishly, Nicole feels anger wrap itself around her fists.

“Ya never went lookin’ for me,” she says, and her voice is too calm, too serene. “Not even when ya was no longer with… with  _ him _ ”.

Her mother smiles, no teeth and no poison, and she pours them both coffee, handing a simple white mug to Nicole before sitting down on an old couch. Nicole stands for a moment, breathing in deeply, before settling down on an arm chair too small for her size.

“Look at me,” her mother says lowly, with a sort of tranquility not dissimilar to what Nicole would expect from dying men, “why would I?”

Nicole tightens her jaw, and it’s funny how easy it is for us to turn guilt into anger.

“‘cause I’m ya daughter,” she says, and it’s spiteful.

Her mother simply furrows her brow, smile still in place.

“I knew where you were, Nicole,” she says, and Nicole hates how much she loves the sound of her own name caressed by that voice, “I knew you were safe”.

Nicole stares, mouth agape.

“What ya mean, ya knew?”

“All this time,” her mother starts, and there’s so much patience in her, so much tenderness where there was only ever  _ nothing, _ that Nicole feels like she might cry. “You think Ned never talked to me? Never told me you were safe?”

Betrayal is strange when the knife on your back isn’t really all that sharp.

“He never… he told ya?”

Her mother only nods, still calm, still smiling, and Nicole doesn’t recognize her at all.

“You were twelve, my heart. Of course he did”.

Nicole remembers, suddenly, being called that on her mother’s good days, when she’d pull her blanket up to her chin and pretend they were lost at sea, talking about the ocean and giant sharks and lonely islands.

She cries, but she isn’t sure she wasn’t already crying.

“‘n ya just… left me?” she asks.

Because see, when one leaves, the other must not come looking.

Abandonment is rarely ever a one sided affair.

“Nicole,” her mother sighs, leaning forward, “what could I have offered you?”

Nicole stares, wide eyed, and she says nothing.

Her mother’s lips quirk up, just the slightest, and Nicole notices she has dimples, too.

“The one thing I’m proud of,” she says, “is letting you go”.

Nicole holds onto her mug, and the ceramic burns her palms, but she does not feel it.

“There hasn’t been a single day I haven’t thought of you,” her mother breathes, eyes glimmering, “but there hasn’t been a single day I haven’t thought of using, either”.

The world was never really how Waverly sees it, after all.

“Ya haven’t… ya ain’t sober,” Nicole speaks carefully.

Her mother’s lips turn downwards, and she looks ashamed.

“It’s gotten better,” she shrugs, but her eyes don’t meet Nicole’s, “without your father. But it’s… it’s hard”.

For the first time in a very long time, Nicole doesn’t feel pity and she doesn’t feel anger and she doesn’t feel anything except sympathy for the woman who’d allowed her to become the best person she could be.

“It must be”.

Her mother looks up, eyes a little wide, and Nicole smiles at her.

“Thank ya,” she shrugs. “Nedley’s… he loves me. He loves me very much”.

The frail woman smiles, and she cries.

“I know he does,”she sighs, “I know he does”.

“Ya should’ve come with me,” Nicole whispers.

She’d been trying to swallow down those words for nine years.

Her mother smiles, not unkindly, but it tells Nicole she’s wrong.

She knows it, too. 

Her mother had chosen to stay.

She squirms on her seat when her mother reaches inside her jacket which lays over the couch’s headrest, bringing out a bottle of pills which rattle against the dull plastic, and she tightens her jaw as she shakes it over her hand, not counting before she shoves them inside her mouth.

Maybe it wasn’t a choice she’d always have made, but it was still a choice.

“Are you in college?” she asks, as if nothing’d happened, and Nicole tries to push down her own unease.

“No,” she shrugs. “Never was much of a... scholar”.

Her mother chuckles.

“Oh, but you were such a smart kid”.

Nicole rubs the back of her neck, back and forth five times.

“I’m a gardener,” she says slowly.

She’d considered the word landscaping, too. It’d always felt fancier.

It’d always tasted strange, too much umami on the back of her throat.

“Really?” her mother asks, overeager and hungry. “That’s an interesting choice”.

She says it naturally, with no hidden meaning, and for that Nicole is thankful.

“Nedley got me into it when I was a kid. Said he was tired of me mopin’ ‘round all day”.

“We never really… encouraged hobbies, did we?” her mother says, and it’s an attempt at a joke.

Nicole laughs.

“Not really,” she shakes her head, and they’re too silent for too long, “he’s been good to me”.

Her mother looks at her, really looks, and Nicole feels like she’s twelve again.

“Better than I could’ve been,” she says, but it isn’t sad, the way she says it.

It’s relieved.

Nicole sighs.

“Ya… it ain’t ya fault. I’m okay, now”.

Her mother smiles again.

“I can see that, my heart,” she whispers, “I’ll never be able to repay him”.

Nicole smiles.

“I think a couple of beers would be enough for that old man”.

The frail woman with no poison aside from the consequences of her choices and the virtue of her family laughs, a little forced and a little strained, but it’s laughter.

Nicole is sure she’s seen her express more emotion in fifteen minutes than she’d had in twelve years.

***

Waverly and Nedley knock on the door far more than what’s strictly necessary, and they enter the small apartment with careful steps and wide eyes.

Nicole smiles at her girlfriend, bright and honest, and the air is lighter with the relief she sees inside the amazon forest.

“We brought cake,” Waverly says.

Nicole gestures for her to come forward, maybe too comfortable in her mother’s home, and the girl walks up with slow steps, smiling at the frail woman sitting across the coffee table. 

“I’m Waverly,” she says with a smile and a wave, and Nicole feels the same strange nervousness she’d felt when she’d told Nedley who she was.

Her mother smiles, extending her hand.

“I’m Elizabeth,” she says with a small smile, and Nicole tries not to dwell on the way her hand shakes just slightly.

Nedley throws himself down on the couch in all his obnoxious gentleness, and Nicole is always so glad for him.

“So,” he starts, careful as always, “how are we?”

Nicole laughs.

“Quit bein’ silly,” she tells him.

Waverly snorts, settling on Nicole’s armrest.

Nicole rests her arm on her thigh, holding on tightly.

“And you are…?” asks Elizabeth.

Nicole swallows.

“She’s my girlfriend,” she says, and she refuses to hesitate. 

She’s come too far for that.

“Oh!” her mother says, a mixture of surprise and something a little too close to pride, and Nicole feels her bones melt and her skin give in to the softness of Waverly’s thighs, “I wish we could’ve met under… better circumstances,” she says, apologetic, and she smiles at Waverly, because she knows they could never have met in any other circumstances.

Waverly only smiles back, and Nicole can’t really smell the stale smoke anymore.

“It’s a pleasure,” she says, and Nicole wants to cry with how much she means it.

They talk, and it is not perfect, and it doesn’t quite feel like family.

There isn’t a homemade meal with fresh herbs and there is no music in the background and the apartment is too small for them all, but they talk and Nicole knows her mother and her mother knows her, if only a little better, and she feels her bones are just collagen, tough and enduring and reliable.

***

When the living room is dark and Nicole feels her muscles fight against her will to sit upright, she blinks.

“Well,” Nedley starts, but says nothing else.

Her mother places her hand on her uncle’s knee, and it looks so out of place, and it looks so natural, like the roots and the stems of a passionfruit wrapping themselves around a fig tree.

“We should go,” Nicole aids him, because her mother’s fingers are shaking and she looks too nervous. 

The woman nods, but it’s filled with sorrow.

“Are you… are you leaving the city today?” she asks slowly.

Nicole and Nedley shake their heads, and it’s funny, how in synch it is.

“Tomorrow mornin’,” he grumbles. 

He breathes in.

“I… I missed ya”.

Elizabeth laughs.

“Never heard that before,” she says, but Nicole notices she holds on tighter.

“Ya… ya stayin’ here?” Nicole asks.

Her mother blinks.

“Nicole-” Nedley starts.

“Ya ain’t… ya ain’t comin’ with us?”

Her mother sighs.

“I’m not”.

Waverly holds onto her hand, but it’s a little too warm.

“I’ll visit, if Nedley doesn’t mind-”

“Ya my mom! Ya shouldn’t just  _ visit _ ,” Nicole tells her.

Nedley opens his mouth, but Elizabeth cuts him off.

“Is that where you think I belong?” she asks, and she smiles, “with you?”

Nicole doesn’t answer.

“Nicole… I’m not a good mom. I never was”.

Nicole swallows the words, and they taste like bile.

She  _ knows.  _

“I want to see you grow, if you two let me” her mother says with a shrug, “but you don’t need me for that”.

Strangely, Nedley laughs.

“She ain’t even need me anymore, the damn thing,” he says with a smile.

Waverly caresses her knuckles, and it’s warm.

Her mother smiles, pride and relief, and it’s warm, too.

Nicole breathes in the light air, and it’s not a struggle to bring oxygen into her lungs.

“Ya… can ya give me ya number?”

She does.

***

Maybe, the only reason Orpheus looked back was to ensure Eurydice would be a memory of love and not of sorrow.

***

“Ya never told me,” Nicole says softly the next morning, mouth full of donuts as she tries to navigate Nedley out of town.

“Huh?” he grumbles, biting into his scone.

“Ya told her ya was with me,” she says, “ya never told me ya’d talked”.

Waverly squirms in the back seat.

Nedley just shrugs.

“Ya was a kid,” he says, “I’m sorry, but… I just didn’t think it’d make much of a difference. Ya wasn’t goin’ back to ‘em”.

Nicole considers it, and she’s too tired of being angry.

“What if I wanted to?” she asks, just because she can.

Nedley snorts.

“I wouldn’t let ya,” he says simply.

It’s silent for a little too long, and Nicole is so thankful for Waverly’s playlist.

“I’m gonna die and still gonna haunt ya ass,” Nedley tells her, “ain’t that easy, gettin’ rid of me”.

***

Nicole rests her forehead against the cold glass of Waverly’s bedroom window, staring at the withered and dry twigs that were once Waverly’s first real garden, and she watches as her breathing turns transparency into haziness.

“What are you thinking about?” Waverly asks.

Nicole feels her spine tingle in surprise, and she looks back at the girl sat on her cramped desk, fingers marking the page she’d been reading and coffee going cold by her side.

“Nothin’,” Nicole shrugs. “Just… wonderin’”.

Waverly smiles at her, and Nicole squirms with the feeling of being adored.

She doesn’t think she’d ever get used to being a god.

“About?” Waverly presses, smiling as she swivels around in her chair, finally reaching for her coffee.

“I ain’t mean to distract ya,” Nicole hums, leaning against her desk, and she means it, but she also means she doesn’t want to be a bother.

“I need to rest, anyways,” Waverly shrugs, still smiling, and sometimes Nicole is so very sure Gaea and Chaos had joined, blessed by Eros, only so that Waverly Earp could smile like that.

At  _ her _ .

“I thought I’d feel… different,” Nicole hums, “after seein’ her”.

“Your mother?” Waverly asks, though she knows the answer.

Nicole shrugs.

“Nothing’s… changed,” she says, looking at the four tomato plants in the four pink ceramic vases. 

That’s a lie, of course.

“Have you been talking to her?” Waverly asks.

“She texts me, sometimes,” Nicole shrugs, “it’s... nice”.

Waverly places her soft little hand over Nicoles, and she squeezes three times.

“Something’s changed, then”.

Nicole breathes out a laugh.

“Guess I was expectin’ some life changin’ realization or somethin’”.

Waverly laughs with her.

“Aren’t you tired of those, though?” she asks with a smirk.

Nicole grins down at her.

“A lil, yeah”.

***

“Did I thank ya?” Nicole asks, lips brushing against Waverly’s hair as they watch The Phantom of the Opera for the third time.

(Nicole hates musicals.

Waverly loves them).

Waverly shifts, cheek rubbing against Nicole’s shoulder as she presses pause, as if she isn’t perfectly sure of everything that’s going to happen through the entire movie.

“For what?”

“Comin’ with us,” Nicole says, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Don’t be silly,” Waverly says, soft little hand resting on Nicole’s thigh with tenderness, “you’ve thanked me, like, ten times now”.

Nicole hums, playful, and she feels Waverly smile against her skin.

“I’m thankin’ ya for bein’ my girlfriend, then,” she says.

Waverly breathes out, chuckling.

“Took me long enough, eh?”

***

Very few things are as terrible as being woken up on a Sunday morning by Wynonna Earp chucking a basketball at one’s face.

Nicole’s life was never  _ not  _ terrible.

“What the fu-”

“God, don’t swear on God’s holy Sunday, Birdman”.

Wynonna’s voice is particularly dreadful this early in the morning, really.

“What the hell are you  _ doin’  _ here?”

“I’m just being a good friend and taking my idiot friend out to have fun!”

“It’s- It’s a Sunday mornin’!”

“So?” Wynonna huffs, sitting down on Nicole’s bed and pulling off her covers. “Is it illegal to have fun on a Sunday morning?”

Waverly Earp giggles, and Nicole feels a little more awake.

“I told her to wait downstairs,” she apologizes with a shrug, bending down to kiss Nicole’s forehead. 

Nicole grunts something about it not being a problem, though her face still hurts and her eyes aren’t fully open yet. 

“We’re having a championship!” Wynonna tells her, a little too excited.

“A what?” Nicole asks, throwing her legs off the bed with a sigh as she rubs her eyes.

“A championship, dumbass,” Wynonna groans, “three on three”.

“Three on  _ what _ ?”

Wynonna groans, as if she has any right to do so.

“Waverly, I think your wife’s broken”.

“We’re not married,” they retort, synchronized, and Nicole groans.

It’s awfully married of them.

“She just woke up, Wynonna, stop being a pain”.

Wynonna grunts something about stealing Nedley’s breakfast before picking up her basketball and leaving the room.

Nicole sighs, falling back on her bed.

“Sorry, love,” Waverly says, though she’s grinning, “she was just… excited”.

Nicole groans.

“Gimme ten minutes and I’ll be ready,” she says, eyes closed, “I hope”.

Waverly chuckles, moving to her closet and rifling through her clothes.

“Go shower,” she says, “I’ll pick some clothes for you”.

Maybe they are a little married.

***

“I do not know how to use a basketball,” Doc informs them, putting his hat on the basketball.

“You don’t  _ use  _ it,” Wynonna tells him.

It’s hot, now, uncomfortably hot, and Nicole is already sweating against the light fabric of her jersey.

Dolls sighs.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” he says, “none of us can play, anyways”.

Rosita looks terribly disgruntled, legs stretched on the dirty cement court as she sips on a pepsi can. 

“I’m not touching that thing,” she points at the ball Doc’s made into his pet, “I don’t get why you two can’t just play by yourselves”.

Wynonna rolls her eyes.

“It’s called  _ bonding,”  _ she points out with a huff, “will you all stop being such killjoys for half an hour?”

Doc examines the hat wearing basketball with affection.

“He looks just like ya, Doc,” Nicole says with a grin.

He grins back.

“Doesn’t he?”

Wynonna slaps the hat off the ball, and it flies at an alarming speed before landing with a dull thud on the grass.

Doc gasps, horrified.

“Guys!” Wynonna claps her hands, “three on three! Come on!”

“You slapped my kid,” Doc accuses, throwing the ball to Nicole before running off to pick up his hat.

Nicole isn’t sure she’s ever seen Wynonna this intent on doing  _ anything  _ before.

“Come on,” she extends her hand to Rosita, who simply stares at it, “losing team buys the winners’ drinks”.

They always worked better with the promise of alcohol.

“How do we separate the teams?” Dolls asks.

“Earps against the rest of you,” Wynonna shrugs.

“That’s two to four, ya dumbass,” Nicole reminds her.

Wynonna huffs, exasperated.

“You’re an Earp, too, dumbass,” Wynonna bites back.

Nicole lets out an embarrassing gasp, and the sun’s shining a little too bright.

Her eyes water.

“Oh my god, she’s crying,” Wynonna groans.

Waverly laughs, resting her small, soft hand on Nicole’s lower back.

“I ain’t!” Nicole grunts.

Not yet, anyways.

“That’s not fair,” Rosita reasons, ignoring them, “you’re both basketball players”.

Dolls hums in agreement.

“Fine,” Wynonna rolls her eyes, “girls against the rest of you, then”.

“Have you ever attended math class?” Waverly asks her sister. 

Were it anyone else, they’d probably earn a nice slap to the back of the head. 

Wynonna only grunts.

“Girls against boys and whatever the hell Nicole has going on,” Wynonna gestures wildly at her.

Nicole rolls her eyes, but she can’t help the grin on her face.

“Lesbian ain’t a gender,” she reminds Wynonna.

“Well,  _ cowboy  _ is, so shut it”.

She’s absolutely wrong, but they choose to ignore it. 

“Whatever,” Rosita groans, “let’s just get this over with”.

Dolls just rolls with whatever Wynonna’s set on doing, as usual, and Doc lights a cigarette.

Nicole doesn’t think he’s ever played any sport in his damned life.

Wynonna pulls the girls off to the side, most certainly to tell them there are no rules and to advise that they play with the intent to kill, but Nicole just steals Doc’s cigarette, taking a long drag as she stares at Waverly Earp, in yoga pants and a tank top, as she crouches down, entirely too focused on whatever idiocy Wynonna’s telling her and Rosita.

She squirms with the familiar feeling of warmth settling inside her stomach.

“Haught,” Dolls snaps his fingers.

“Uh”.

Doc snorts.

“Aren’t you supposed to teach us something?” Dolls asks, valiantly fighting off his grin. “Give us directions?”

“Ya two ain’t ever learn nothin’ in ya lives,” Nicole replies, “y’all gonna be bad anyways”.

***

As it turns out, they’re all very bad.

Nicole had half expected Dolls to be decent, and love had blinded her enough to believe her 5 feet tall girlfriend wouldn’t be completely useless.

She was wrong, naturally.

Dolls can’t shoot the ball to save his life, and it bounces off Wynonna’s head so many times Nicole worries she might get a concussion. 

Doc just really stands there, not doing much of anything, and whenever Nicole passes him the ball, he just throws it right back at her, unbothered and unenthusiastic.

She swears to god he lights a cigarette at some point.

Waverly is either squealing, pecking Nicole’s cheek in the middle of their game, or trying very hard to pass the ball to someone else, which is unfortunate, really, since Nicole is twice her size and a little too competitive to care about letting her girlfriend win.

It’s a little pretty, too, the little huff Waverly lets out everytime Nicole steals the ball from her, and sometimes Nicole dribbles back to her just to kiss her on the forehead before getting back in the game.

And maybe Wynonna’s just very good at pep talks, or maybe Rosita is more deranged than what Nicole was aware, but the girl kicks and shoves and frankly, Nicole is more scared of her than of Wynonna, because the girl’s nails are long and she’s got just enough ignorance of the actual game to be more interested in maiming Nicole than stealing the ball.

At some point, Doc sits down on the grass, smoking his cigarettes, and Waverly replaces him, leaving the three of them against two girls positively determined to assassinate Nicole. 

When they stop to breathe, Wynonna huffs.

(She’s losing, of course).

“You’ve got more players,” she complains.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Don’t be a damn baby”.

“You do, though!”

Nicole has a terrible idea.

“Waves!”

Waverly walks over to them, gracious even with sweaty skin and red cheeks.

Nicole loves her so very much.

She kneels down, patting at her shoulders.

“Hop on,” she says, and Waverly stares, confused, but complies.

Wynonna rolls her eyes at them as Nicole stands upright.

“We’re one player, now,” Nicole tells Wynonna, trying to maintain her balance with the new weight sitting on her shoulders.

Waverly giggles.

“Last chance to win, Wynonna,” Nicole tells her, handing Rosita the ball before Wynonna can murder her.

It’s really not that hard, walking around with Waverly sat on her shoulders.

She’s pretty sure she weighs about ten pounds.

And by the grace of god, Dolls decides it’s time to be a little less useless, and he steals the ball from one Wynonna Earp, running off with what Nicole’s sure is more fear than competitiveness.

He throws it forward, almost hitting Nicole square in the face, but she manages to hold onto it, throwing it up to Waverly.

“Come on, little one,” she pleads, “let’s get this over with”.

And really, it isn’t humanly possible for Waverly to miss when her forehead is almost touching the hoop, and Nicole hears her squealing in excitement before the chains are even rattling, and for some dumb reason, even Rosita gets excited at their stupidity.

As Waverly climbs down, throwing herself on Dolls as he grins at her, Wynonna laughing as Rosita runs, tackling Dolls and effectively forcing the three of them to fall onto the cement, Nicole feels sadness creep in like weeds, because she knows just how much she’ll miss them all.

She really doesn’t want to grow old.

***

Later, she finds Wynonna sat on the same spot of grass she’d occupied so many times before, beer bottle in her hand as she stares into the vast nothingness of space.

“Howdy,” she greets, sitting down beside her.

“Hey”.

Wynonna was never quiet.

“Why were ya so excited today? ‘bout playin’?”

Wynonna looks over at her, with a smile too serious and icy eyes too hazy.

“We’re growing up,” she says simply.

Nicole had never really questioned just why exactly they were friends.

She’d always known they were more alike than either would ever admit.

“We are,” she sighs.

They’re silent, then, and the stars shining above them share their quietude.

“I’m gonna miss this,” Nicole says, and she doesn’t need to elaborate.

“I will, too”.

She breathes in and she breathes out, and they finish their beers in silence before standing up. 

Nicole lights a cigarette, and Wynonna smokes with her.

“Ya think we still gonna be friends? Ten years from now?” Nicole asks, wistful.

“We’re family, idiot,” Wynonna replies.

They hear Rosita and Waverly yelling over each other, Doc’s obnoxious laughter cutting through their high pitched voices.

“Not that easy to get rid of, is it?” Nicole asks the grass and the void and Wynonna Earp. “Family, I mean”.

“No, sir,” Wynonna says, stomping out the cigarette before slapping Nicole on the back of the head. “Come on,” she says, “Rosita made us guacamole”.

Nicole follows her inside the Earp Homestead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this has been fun!  
> Seeing as this is nearing it's end, I'd just like to thank you all for the hundredth time for the love and support thorough this monstrous little guy. It really has been a pleasure to write, and it's delectable, seeing so many people enjoy this little thing I'm putting out into the void that is the internet.
> 
> Thank you so very, very much.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it.
> 
> Thank you.

22.

“God, that looks so gross,” Wynonna moans.

Dolls clicks his tongue.

“Don’t be rude, Wynonna”.

Nedley pats him on the shoulder, and Nicole really doesn't like how her stomach twists just the slightest at the sight.

That weight had always been on  _ her  _ shoulder.

“It’s a family recipe,” Nedley tells her, strangely patient as he mixes the frankly unnecessary amount of herbs together. 

“It’s so…” Wynonna grunts, leaning over to stare inside the bowl, “green”.

“They’re called spices, Wynonna,” Nicole rolls her eyes, “that’s how ya flavor food”.

Waverly grunts from her spot by the table Dolls had helped Nicole drag outside, corkscrew in hand.

“Ya need help, lil lady?”

Waverly looks up at her, cheeks red with the effort, and she huffs.

“No, thank you,” she replies, pulling on the corkscrew. 

“Ya done gonna break the bottle,” Nicole advises. 

Waverly looks up again, brow furrowed, and Nicole wisely decides against arguing with the girl.

“You good, baby girl?” Wynonna tries, protecting her eyes from the sun as she watches her sister try to open the bottle of white wine she’d been wrestling with for almost five minutes now.

“I’m perfectly capable of opening a wine bottle on my own,” Waverly informs them.

Dolls snorts.

“Don’t laugh!” she chastises.

“Sorry,” he says, hiding his smirk, “not laughing”.

Nicole’s phone rings.

“Ya?”

From the other end of the line, she hears the first voice to ever say her name.

“Oh, already? I’m comin’!”

She turns off her phone, and Nedley’s staring at her with so much affection and pride she feels the tips of her toes burning.

“She’s nearin’ the bus station,” she tells him.

He nods, smile warmer than the sun. 

“Waves?” Nicole calls, “ya wanna come with?”

Waverly Earp is already on her feet, wine bottle forgotten, and she says nothing, only holding onto Nicole’s hand with a smile warmer than a neutron star.

“Oh yeah, please get her tiny little fingers away from the alcohol,” Wynonna grumbles, already pulling on the corkscrew.

The bottle’s open in about three seconds.

“Shut it!” Waverly warns Nicole.

Nicole shuts it.

***

“Nervous?”

“Huh?”

“Nervous?” Waverly asks again. 

Nicole looks over at her.

“Nah”.

Waverly snorts.

“What?” Nicole asks, eyes focused on the road.

“You only tap your thumb against the wheel when you’re nervous,” she points out.

Being known is as terrifying as it is delicious.

“She’s never come here before,” she shrugs. 

Waverly rests her soft little hand over Nicole’s right hand, placed on the gear.

“It’s going to be fine,” she says, because it is true.

Nicole blows out a deep breath. 

***

Her mother looks more nervous than she is, and she’s selfishly thankful for it.

The car door groans as she opens it, and her mother doesn’t look up from the small bench in front of the bus station at first, focused on her own fidgeting fingers and looking so very small.

Strangely, there’s no sense of retribution at the sight.

Nicole is glad. She was always known for being good.

It’s nice, feeling her feet stretch and fit in those shoes.

“Mom!” she calls to her, and it’s only when the words are floating up to the sky that she realizes what she’s said.

Instinct and all that.

Her mother looks up, surprised, and she’s still frail and too skinny and her eyes are still hazy and a little too deep, and Nicole doesn’t like the reminder that she is not a saint and she is not capable of miracles.

The woman stands up slowly, and Nicole watches her, and she feels Waverly watching her, too.

She moves towards her, picking up her bag.

“I got it,” she mutters.

Her mother hugs her, tight and frail, and Nicole doesn’t feel safe. 

She feels unknown and she feels sharp, and she finds she rather likes it.

“You didn’t have to come and get me,” her mother tells her, smiling.

Nicole shrugs, and she smiles, too.

She gestures for her mother to follow, and she smiles, winking at the girl standing by the opened passenger door.

“Mrs. Nedley,” she says, “nice to see you again!”

Nicole really did rub off on her, after all.

“Elizabeth, please,” she says with a wave, and Waverly smiles at her.

Nicole throws the woman’s bag on the bed of her truck, and it’s only when it thuds loudly against the metal that she remembers it isn’t a sack of fertilizer.

“Uh,” she clears her throat, “sorry”.

Her mother only laughs.

***

She parks the truck, and it’s too slow.

Her mother looks a little overwhelmed.

“Ya good?” Nicole asks her softly.

Her mother laughs.

“It’s a nice house,” she says.

It’s sad, the way she says it.

“It’s open, too,” Nicole assures her, “welcomin’”.

Her mother smiles, and she opens the truck’s door.

It makes no noise.

***

Nicole and Waverly show her around, and it’s so similar to what Nedley had done to her ten years ago, showing her the living room and the kitchen and the bathroom, opening her bedroom door and telling her to come inside, it’s her room for now.

Instead of retribution, there is comfort and satisfaction in being to someone else what the love of her life had been for her. 

(because if she’s being honest, she cannot say Waverly Earp is the love of her life, not really, not when Randy Nedley had given ten years of his life to her and had asked for nothing in return.

Romance is selfish, really.

Parenthood should never be).

And then Waverly asks her if she’d like anything, a drink or some water or whatever, and her mom almost pleads for some whiskey, and Nicole tells her she’ll get it for her, she can go right ahead with Waverly.

***

When she walks outside, warm spring sun shining down on her as the condensation in the glass she holds drips down her fingers, she feels one with the sunflowers she’d planted for Waverly.

Wynonna and Dolls stand side by side as Waverly says something to them, Elizabeth standing behind her. She extends her hand, and to Nicole’s surprise, Wynonna shakes it with no snark. 

Dolls smiles at her.

Nedley’s heavy hand rests on her shoulder, grounding her to planet Earth, and he sighs.

“Weird, ain’t it?” he says, and she can taste his happiness in the air, floating with the pollen.

“Real weird,” she agrees.

He leans down, pressing his lips against the top of her head, and his mustache tickles her scalp. 

“Nice, though, ain’t it?” he adds.

“Real nice”.

They walk up to them, and Nicole’s hand finds Waverly’s, as it always does and always will.

“Mom,” she says.

Instinct and all that.

Her mother looks back at her, and Nicole hands her her glass. The woman smiles.

“I was telling your mom about your career as Kobe Bryant,” Wynonna tells her.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“It was just some dumb high school games,” she says. 

“Have some respect,” Wynonna huffs.

Her mother smiles warmly, as if this is expected, as if she’s part of an ecosystem as frail as it is robust.

Nicole wouldn’t mind it, if she was. Not really.

***

They talk, and it is not perfect, and it doesn’t quite feel like family.

But there is a homemade meal with fresh herbs and there is Wynonna going on and on about Nicole’s teenage years with the strange tenderness Nicole would never expect from her, and Elizabeth tells them about her years of freedom and her sorrow and even her drugs, and Nicole knows her mother and her mother knows her, if only a little better, and she feels her bones are just collagen, tough and enduring and reliable and gifted to her by the woman who sits in front of her and drinks her bourbon and compliments Nedley on his cooking.

***

When Nicole wakes up the next day, neck stiff from the uncomfortable couch, she hears the soft clink of ceramic against the kitchen counter.

She used to dream about it, when she was younger. That she’d wake up in the morning and walk down the stairs and into the kitchen, and her mother would be there, healthy, thirty pounds heavier, smiling. “Good morning, my heart,” she’d say, and she’d hand her a cup of coffee.

She briefly wonders if she isn’t dreaming again, but the pain in her back and the way her sweaty skin sticks to her clothes tell her otherwise. 

She gets up, bare feet thudding against the linoleum, and she walks over to the kitchen.

Her mother’s there, not quite healthy and all too thin. 

And yet, she’s smiling.

“Good morning,” she says simply.

Nicole smiles, rubbing her eyes.

“Mornin’,” she answers slowly. “Ya good?”

Her mother chuckles.

“I wanted to make you guys breakfast,” she says, coy, “but I can’t figure out the coffee maker”.

Nicole feels warm.

“I’ll teach ya”.

And she does.

***

When Nedley walks downstairs, he finds Nicole flipping pancakes while her mother pours them all coffee, and Nicole looks back to meet his eyes.

They’re watery. 

She groans.

“Ya gettin’ senile, sir,” she tells him.

He grunts.

“‘n ya gettin’ damn ill-mannered,” he kindly informs her. “Mornin’,” he nods at his sister.

She smiles at him.

“Thank you for inviting me,” she says for the fifth time.

He rolls his eyes.

“Don’t ya get all courteous, now,” he groans, “gotta make up for lost time ‘n all”.

She chuckles.

***

It’s strange, having her around, even if only for a few days.

There’s not that old sort of comfort of day to day life. Nicole still feels awkward around her, embarrassed to walk around with no shoes on and in old, ever dirty jeans.

But it’s nice, sharing a little with her. 

She tells her mother about her garden, showing her around and telling her their names and what they are and for how long they’d been there. 

Her mother cries. 

Out of pride, she says.

Nicole wonders if there isn’t regret there, too.

***

“Can we name our first kid Ariadne?” 

Nicole chokes on her wine. 

“Wha-?”

Waverly looks up at her, wrapped in a million blankets, and she laughs, sipping on her wine before speaking again.

Nicole feels the cold metal of the bed of her truck digging against her skin, and she’s glad it’s a warm night.

“Can we name our first kid Ariadne?”

Nicole feels herself blush, and she’s very glad she’s wearing the black stetson Waverly’d given her so long ago. It hides the tips of her ears.

“Our kid?” 

Waverly rolls her eyes, sitting up and crossing her legs. 

“Yes baby, our  _ kid _ ”.

“Ya wanna have kids?” Nicole asks, eyes a little too wide, and the little bird that is her heart laughs at her, mocking from it’s place inside it’s cage and from it’s place on Waverly’s shoulder. “With me?”

“You don’t?” Waverly asks, but she’s smiling and she’s too confident to really worry.

She’d always understood her own power, after all.

“I do!” Nicole splutters.

“Well then,” Waverly says, simple and evident and all that they had become to themselves and to each other. “Can we?”

The metal is searing heat against her soft skin, and Nicole melts against it with pride. 

“What if it’s a boy?” Nicole asks.

She looks into foreign planets and welcoming forests and the prettiest damn leaves she’s ever seen, and they all know her and love her back, and it’s nice, really, being alive.

“I think you know the answer to that, Nicole”.

Nicole wouldn’t dare say it out loud, really. She never liked hoping.

“Do I?” she asks, all too coy.

Waverly smiles, raising her eyebrow.

“You do”.

Nicole laughs.

“Ya gonna be the one who’s tellin’ our kid he’s named after a damn dill, though,” she tells Waverly.

Waverly Earp laughs, light and pretty and sunlit even as the moon stares down at them.

“I can live with that,” she says, and she kisses Nicole, and they’re both the sun and they’re both the sunflower.

23.

Nicole waits, eyes shielded from the sun by her old stetson, and she watches the young adults walking around campus, going on about things she’s never heard of and which do not matter, not really, and she crosses her arms across her chest, resting against her truck.

Waverly Earp exits the main building, a boy and a girl Nicole’s never seen before in tow, and she talks excitedly, arms flailing and hands moving in the way Nicole has come to recognize as the way she moves when she’s talking about Walter Benjamin and the symbology of Greek Mythology and the significance of french linguistics.

(Nicole doesn’t always get it, but she always loves to hear it).

For a moment, she’s reminded of Waverly Earp with her friends who were never really friends, talking about things she didn’t care about, pretending she wasn’t in love with her. But all seasons have a purpose, so Waverly Earp jogs towards her, friends trying to keep up, and she hugs Nicole so very very tight, pressing her warm lips against Nicole’s and smiling at her.

“Hey,” she greets, eyes squinting under the sun.

Nicole places her hat on her head, and Waverly beams. 

“Howdy,” she winks.

How delightful it is to get a roman candle to melt until it’s nothing but smoke.

The boy and the girl stare at them, smiling, and Nicole clears her throat. 

“I’m Nicole,” she greets, extending her hand, “Waverly’s girlfriend”.

The words taste so much better when said in front of an audience, with no fear and no hesitation.

“Oh, we know,” the girl says, and her grip is tight and certain, “she won’t shut up about you”.

Waverly blushes, and Nicole pulls her against her side. Her skin is impossible, and her skin is soft.

It’s so different, now, how easy it is, how comfortable Waverly is as she tells them Nicole’s a gardener with pride in her voice, as she tells them they’ve been together for quite some time now, and then Rosita joins them, groaning about people Nicole doesn’t know, and everyone agrees with her, so she nods along, and she doesn’t feel like an alien the way she felt in school, she feels like a visitor, welcomed and offered coffee on her way in.

***

They get home after twenty terrible minutes of Waverly and Rosita arguing about post positivism and another fifteen terrible minutes of Waverly going on about the problem with STEM majors after they’d dropped Rosita off.

(It’s not terrible, really, not at all, and Nicole loves her so much it burns and aches and stretches her skin until it’s close to bursting).

“You think Timothy knows it when I’m here?” Waverly asks Nicole, huffing as Nicole picks up her backpack full of heavy books, all too tired of arguing about how she’s perfectly capable of carrying it herself. 

They’ve had that conversation so many times.

“Uh,” Nicole snorts, “he can’t feel things, Waves,” she reminds her.

Waverly slaps her arm.

“Don’t be rude to him!”

Nicole chuckles.

“He’s a gentleman,” she assures Waverly, “but he ain’t got no nervous system”.

Waverly huffs, caressing Timothy for a long moment.

Nicole smiles at the sight.

“He loves ya, though,” she whispers.

Waverly rolls her eyes, and she smiles. 

“Does he, now?”

“He says it all the time,” Nicole assures her.

Waverly grins, full of love, and Nicole feels the blood flowing inside her veins, steady and warm.

“I love you both, too”.

24.

Nicole parks her truck, and her hands sweat as she looks on at the small shape of Waverly Earp sat on the Homestead’s front steps.

Though the snow’s melting, it is still cold. 

That was always a bad sign.

She opens the door, and it creaks just slightly, metal groaning as her boots crunch against old, dirty snow, and she fixes her black stetson with too much care, wrapping her fleece denim coat around herself before slowly walking up to Waverly.

Waverly looks up at her, strange smile on her face, and Nicole feels her stomach sink to the bottom of the ocean.

“Howdy,” she greets, careful, and Waverly fidgets with an envelope.

“Hey”.

Nicole sits down on the steps, too.

“Everythin’ alright?” she asks, and for a second, all her brain can think about is how unfortunate it’d be if she had to cancel their reservation on the restaurant the next town over if Waverly Earp broke up with her. 

They probably wouldn’t appreciate the mere two hour notice.

“Uh,” Waverly starts, and then she shrugs. “Remember the… the master’s program I applied to?”

Nicole hums.

“Of course”.

Waverly sighs.

“I…” she looks to her side, so blue her green eyes are the color of the ocean, “I got in”.

Nicole jumps up, almost slipping on the puddle of melted snow in front of them.

“Ya did?!”

Waverly just nods.

“Oh my- Waverly! Ya got in!” she all but yells, flailing her arms around her face.

Waverly just stares at her.

“It was ya dream!” Nicole reminds her, “why ain’t ya- why ain’t ya celebratin’?”

Waverly breathes in, and then she breathes out.

“UCLA, Nicole”.

Nicole stops moving.

“I know that,” she frowns.

“Well?”

“Well  _ what _ ?”

“That’s in California”.

“I ain’t stupid, Waverly”.

“That’s not what I-” she sighs. 

“Ain’t Wynonna saving money for ya? Ya been workin’, too. Ya said it was… possible”.

Waverly presses her fingers against her temples. 

“That’s not what I’m… worried about”.

Nicole crouches in front of her, pulling her hands away from her face.

“Why ain’t ya happy, baby?”

“You’d be… Purgatory isn’t very… close to LA,” Waverly says, with a sad little smile.

“Oh”.

Waverly squeezes her hands three times.

“There ain’t no snow, there”.

“What?”

“It doesn’t snow in California, does it?” Nicole asks.

“Uh. No,” Waverly shrugs, brow furrowed.

“Good, then,” Nicole shrugs, “‘em californians must have gardens, too, ain’t it?”

Waverly opens her mouth, and for the longest moment, nothing comes out.

“What?”

“I'm sure I can find somethin’ to do over there. I got money, too, ya know,” she shrugs, “ain’t gonna be too much of a problem”.

“Nicole-”

“Baby, listen,” Nicole cuts her off, “ya ain’t  _ ever  _ gonna let anyone mess with ya future, yeah? Not me, not ya dad, no one. Ya too damn brilliant for that”.

Waverly breathes in, and then she breathes out.

“But I ain’t… I ain’t stuck here, ya know? I ain’t gonna drag ya down with me. If ya don’t want me to come with ya, that’s alright, there ain’t no problem, I ain’t gonna be mad or nothin’,” she sighs, “but I… I wanna be where ya are”.

“I can’t ask you to… to uproot your whole life because of me”.

Nicole laughs.

Nicole laughs and laughs and laughs until she almost loses balance and falls onto the dirty puddle of melted snow.

“For someone so damn smart ya really are slow sometimes, ain’t ya, lil lady?”

Waverly huffs.

“Ya my damn life, Waverly Earp,” she says simply, and the words are a clear river, “ya always was”.

She really hates it when Waverly cries, but she doesn’t think she minds it, this time.

“Besides, Timothy’s doing damn fine after we transplanted him, ain’t he?”

Waverly sobs, lunging forward and holding onto Nicole so fiercely she falls back, instantly feeling the cold, dirty snow seeping in her clothes, and she doesn’t give a damn about it, because Waverly is warm and she’s happy and she’s everything.

***

“Are you sure?” Waverly asks again, looking down at her plate.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

“Ya asked me that a hundred times already,” she groans.

“I’m just-”

“Waverly Earp,” Nicole sighs, “I want to marry ya, one day”.

Waverly stares at her.

“Ain’t got no problem with a lil movin’ ‘round”.

***

A week later, Nicole decides she really needs to talk to Nedley.

(it’s less a decision and more of giving in to Waverly constantly reminding her that it’s only fair he knows, too, but she likes to think she decided, anyways).

She watches him chop fresh chives as she holds onto the wok she’d gifted him two years ago, and she takes a deep breath, sipping on her bottle of beer before opening her mouth.

“Sir?”

He hums.

“Sir”.

He stops, looking up.

“Yeah?”

Nicole sighs.

“I’m a lil old, ain’t I?”

He snorts. 

“For livin’ with ya, I mean”.

Nedley raises an eyebrow.

“Whatcha mean?”

“Uh,” Nicole huffs, “I’m… ya remember what I told ya? ‘bout Waverly’s master’s?”

He furrows his brow, and it tells Nicole he doesn't, really.

“‘bout UCLA,” she tries.

“Oh,” he clicks his fingers, “what ‘bout it?”

Nicole really can’t help but smile at him, pride washing over her in wave after foamy wave of salt water.

“She got in”.

His eyes go wide, and he’s salt water, too.

“Really?” he asks, smiling back.

Nicole only nods, and her smile falters just enough for Nedley to notice.

He sighs.

“Ya wanna go with her, huh?”

Always so strange, being known. Always so sweet.

Nicole shrugs.

“I’m  _ goin’  _ with her,” she corrects him.

His mustache quivers, and she tries to ignore his damn watery eyes.

“‘bout damn time ya get out of my hair, ain’t it?”

Nicole huffs.

“Ya ain’t got no god damned hair, sir”.

He laughs, and it’s honey, sweet and sticky.

“How far away is it?”

Nicole purses her lips.

“Forty-hour car ride”.

He lets out something uncomfortably close to a sob, but he smiles.

“At least I’m losin’ ya to someone good, huh?” he laughs, “to a pretty lady”.

“Ya ain’t losin’ me, ya damn fool,” she groans, shoving his shoulder as she feels her eyes sting with salt water, “I know ya old, but we ain’t gotta send letters no more. I’ll call ya everyday”.

He places his heavy hand over her hair, caressing it with the blundering sort of affection she’d come to love so very very much. 

“Ya movin’ to California, then, is it?”

She shrugs.

“Yes, sir”.

He snorts.

“Gettin’ out of the damn winter’s what ya doin’,” he groans, “gonna work yaself dead over there”.

Nicole smiles up at him.

“Waverly won’t let me, sir,” she assures him. 

“Oh, I know,” he winks at her, “ya’d do just ‘bout anythin’ for that one”.

Nicole really can’t argue with that.

“Wouldn’t lose ya to anyone else”.

***

It’s scary.

It’s scary swimming into the ocean for the first time, feeling the heavy tide and the ruthless waves and the salt sting your eyes.

It’s also the best damn thing in the whole world.

***

Nicole lays in bed after two days of Waverly Earp telling her about savings and rent and houses, and her bed is floating on a sea which simmers with hidden creatures and shimmers with the moons supernatural glow. 

It feels real, now, the distance and the moving and the foreign.

She’s scared.

And maybe it’s instinct, and maybe it’s just desperation, but she calls her mother, and the woman picks up after three rings.

Nicole tells her about California and UCLA and changing, and her mother listens.

She gives no advice and she does not try to change anything.

She just listens.

And then she tells Nicole it’s okay to be scared, we’re always scared when it comes to what matters. She was scared of picking up the phone, she says, but she did, and she was glad she did.

“Ain’t it… wrong? Changin’ my whole life for a girl?”

Her mother laughs.

“Are you, though? Changing your whole life for a girl?”

Nicole thinks about how much she hates the winter and how tired she was of the same people and the same damn gardens and how when she pictured her and Waverly Earp, ten years from now, they were different and bigger and full of experience, and really, Purgatory was not home, not really. 

Home could never be a place.

“Guess I’m just… changin’,” she tells her mother.

She can taste her mother’s smile when she answers.

“Nothing wrong with that”.

Indeed.

***

“This is forty minutes away from UCLA!”

Nicole grunts.

“I ain’t livin’ in no damn apartment, Waverly”.

Waverly sighs. 

“I’m using your truck, then”.

“Ya can’t drive!”

“I’l learn!”

Nicole huffs.

“I’ll take ya!”

“You’ll take me to  _ every  _ class,  _ every  _ day, just so you can have a backyard?”

Nicole raises her eyebrows.

“Yes ma’am”.

Waverly rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning.

“You’re ridiculous”.

“It’s my one demand, baby,” she reminds Waverly.

Waverly closes three different tabs on her computer. 

“Fine,” she grunts, and she’s still grinning, “we’ll live on the  _ suburbs  _ like two  _ old  _ people”.

Nicole is all too aware of how much Waverly loves that idea, really. 

“Ya can join a housewife joggin’ group,” Nicole informs her.

“ _ Housewife _ !” Waverly gasps, “watch your mouth, cowboy”.

Nicole presses her lips against Waverly’s clavicle, and she bites down on her neck. 

“I’m watchin’ it”.

***

“I can’t believe you’re stealing my sister,” Wynonna grunts, already drunk as she places her bare feet on her coffee table.

“I ain’t stealin’ ‘er,” Nicole reminds her, “‘n it’s just two years”.

“You guys coming back, afterwards?” Rosita asks, sipping on her god damned bourbon with the goddamned lime slice.

Nicole looks up from her place between Waverly’s feet, and she’s taken by the sight of the girl sitting on her armchair as if it was a throne.

Waverly smiles down at her, and, really, they’re at eye level.

Always were.

“Who knows,” Waverly shrugs.

Maybe Nicole is drunker than what she’d thought, but she laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Who the hell knows,” she agrees.

Dolls smiles at her, and she likes the sight of him in uniform and with a beer bottle in his hand. 

“I’m proud of you,” he tells them, “both of you”.

Maybe Nicole is drunker than what she’d thought, but she feels her eyes sting.

“Don’t get all emotional, Xavier,” she tells him.

He only chuckles.

“It’s not like we’re not going to visit you all the time, anyways,” Waverly says with a huff, “someone has been hoarding money like a sneaky little dragon for the last five years”.

Nicole laughs.

“It ain’t hoardin’!” she corrects, “just didn’t have nothin’ to do with it”.

“Bet you twenty bucks Nicole’s gonna ruin her savings in two weeks buying banana plants or something weird like that,” Wynonna tells the room. 

Nicole gasps.

“Ya called me Nicole!”

“It’s your fucking name, moron,” Wynonna informs her, though she looks embarrassed with the slip.

“She ran out of nicknames, I think,” Doc points out with a grin.

Rosita laughs.

“She ran out of those two years ago,” she supplies.

Wynonna groans.

“I’m so glad you two are fucking off to California,” she sighs.

Waverly snorts.

“You were cryin-”.

“If you finish that sentence I’m going to murder you, Waverly Earp”.

Waverly only laughs at her.

“Wynonna Earp was crying?” Doc asks, mocking.

Wynonna narrows her eyes at him.

“Watch it, lip rug”.

“Oh no,” Rosita sighs, “your time has come, Doc,” she says, patting his thigh with faux affection. 

“I wish you’d  _ all  _ fuck off to California,” Wynonna tells them, and it’s a lie, of course. 

Nicole doesn’t blame her, though.

She’d cried, too.

***

The day before they’re supposed to leave on a week long road trip to what will become their life, Nicole sits on front of her garden, and she sobs.

She’d written down every goddamned detail she could think of in a notebook, with their names and their preferences, and she trusted Nedley would take good care of her plants, but it still hurt.

She avoids looking over at Timothy.

She’d dedicated two pages to him, and she’d written the word “stubborn” in red marker.

It hurts, growing up, and she feels as someone tugs on her until her roots are dragging against dry soil, up and up and up and exposed to the sun and to the wind and to everything they do not like.

Her skin burns.

***

Nicole has never felt more thankful than when Wynonna comes to see them off, smiling and light as ever.

She’d feared that if the ice caps melted in front of her, she’d cry, too.

Nedley’s wailing was enough already, and every tear buried itself into her heart and the salt rubbed over the wounds. 

“What’s happening with your little garden?” Wynonna asks, nonchalant as she throws one of Waverly’s bags in the back seat of Nicole’s truck.

“Nedley’s gonna take care of it,” she shrugs.

Wynonna hums. She’d been assigned to gardening duties by Waverly, too.

“And Timmy boy?” she asks.

Nicole didn’t know she knew their names.

“Nedley’ll take care of him, too”.

Wynonna hums.

“Thought you’d take him,” Wynonna says, “Waverly’s always going on about her kid or whatever”.

A lump forms in Nicole’s throat, and she tastes copper.

Nedley calls out to her, and she leaves Wynonna to deal with the organizing of Waverly’s endless bags.

“Ya got ya coffee?”

“Yes, sir”.

“Ya medicine?”

“Yes, sir”.

“When’s the U-Haul gettin’ there?”

“Same day we do, sir. In the mornin’”.

“Ya ain’t forgetting nothin’?”

Nicole huffs.

“Sir,” she chuckles, “we’ve gone over everythin’ everyday for two weeks. I ain’t got that much stuff”.

He blinks away tears, and she feels the salt.

“I’ll be back in two months,” she reminds him.

“Ya gonna call me on every stop, yeah? Dangerous, those roads”.

They aren’t, not really.

“Yes, sir”.

He sniffs, and he smiles.

“I’m happy for ya, chicken,” he whispers, heavy hand on her shoulder, grounding her to earth, telling her where her roots will always be. 

“Happy tears, ain’t it?” she mocks.

He chuckles.

“Some of ‘em”.

A soft little hand finds it’s way to Nicole’s calloused ones.

“We’re done, baby,” Waverly whispers.

Nedley lets out something between a chuckle and a sob.

“Y’all should go,” he says, “it’s gettin’ dark”.

It is eight in the morning, but no one tells him that.

Waverly squeezes Nicole’s hand three times before letting go, and she hugs Nedley until her feet are dangling from the floor.

“I’ll take care of her,” Waverly tells him.

He holds on tight, and he tells her he knows.

***

The turquoise truck shines under the warm summer sun, and Waverly Earp, the prettiest damn thing Nicole ever did see, smiles at her.

“Ready?”

Nicole laughs.

“Not really”.

Waverly laughs, too.

“Where’s Wynonna?” Nicole asks her.

Waverly points, and Nicole spots the girl carrying an empty wine bottle.

“Eight in the mornin’s a new record!” Nicole shouts.

Wynonna turns towards her, showing her her middle finger, and then she walks out of view behind the house. 

“She lost it,” Nicole tells Waverly.

Nedley snorts.

“Never had it”.

Waverly slaps his round belly with playfulness, and Nicole loves them so very very much.

A moment later, Wynonna Earp returns, wine bottle in hand and filled with  _ something _ .

Nicole furrows her brow as Wynonna bends down over Timothy, mumbling something before pulling at him until he lets go, a long, flowery stem coming off.

Nicole Haught feels herself melt against the planet Earth and against Waverly Earp and against the delight of being known with no malice and no intention but only love.

Wynonna jogs towards them, serious, and she shoves the wine bottle towards Nicole, the stem safely tucked inside it.

It’s water, Nicole realizes.

“There,” Wynonna grunts. “Now you two can plant your stupid kid in your new stupid house”.

She says it with so much love and so much affection Nicole feels the little bird that is her heart might have turned into something fierce, all talon and sharp beak.

Would ya look at that.

Nicole holds the bottle, mouth agape.

Waverly Earp sniffs.

“Thank you,” she tells her sister, and she hugs her tight.

Melting ice caps find Nicole, and somehow, Nicole only smiles at her.

When Waverly climbs inside, Timothy in hand as she searches for her impossibly long playlist, Nicole finds herself staring at the two people who, really, had allowed her to be who she is.

She hugs Nedley first, for the hundredth time that day, and he’s no longer crying. 

She hugs Wynonna for what is maybe the third time in their life, and Wynonna has nothing to say to her. 

They smile.

“Anything happens to her, I’ll cut off your legs and make you eat them,” Wynonna tells her.

Nicole opens her car door, and it makes no sound.

“I know,” she tells Wynonna, and she climbs in.

Waverly places Timothy in the cup holder between them with a smile.

And then she starts laughing.

“You know what I’ve been thinking about all morning?”

Nicole laughs, too, because how can she not.

“What?”

Waverly laughs harder.

“Ya done gonna need an iceberg for that big ol’ head of his,” Waverly says, and her forced accent is the absolute  _ worst  _ Nicole’s ever heard.

Nicole laughs, too.

“Ya met me at my damn meanest!”

Waverly giggles.

“I know,” she says, suddenly quiet, “that’s how I know, I think”.

Nicole starts the car, and she waves at Nedley and Wynonna Earp, and they wave back.

“Know what?”

“Remember when I told you I’d let you know? If it ever went right?”

Nicole does, of course.

She feels like she remembers every single moment the foreign planets stared down at her.

“Yes, ma’am,” she whispers, and they can no longer see Nedley and Wynonna.

It’s just them.

“That’s how I know it’s going right”.

And it’s true, really.

Nicole knows nothing about love or life or anything except for that one fact, that it’s going  _ right. _

But that’s the fun of it, she guesses. 

Always had been.


End file.
